Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was born Sheila Ann Kuehl in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her father, Arthur, was an airplane construction worker at Douglas Aircraft. He was Catholic and her mother, Lillian, was Jewish. As a child actress she performed under the stage name Sheila James.
Sheila Kuehl
After "The Stu Erwin Show" ended Kuehl continued to work as an actress while going to school. Due to academic success Kuehl had been able to skip two grades and by sixteen was attending the University of California, Los Angeles. As her college studies continued she moved into a sorority house and began spending summers as a counsellor for a children's camp. At the age of eighteen while working at the camp Kuehl met a twenty-one year-old counsellor named Kathy and fell in love. Kuehl would later recall "It was just a funny attraction that neither of us would acknowledge. Then, one night she and I were sitting together at her place. She was rubbing my back and we just, like, went to bed. It was wonderful. But then we stayed up all night wondering if we were really sick." They concluded that they were "sick" but that nothing could be done. Kuehl later recalled "There was no movement then. There was nothing to read. I knew no lesbians. We just figured this was a rare thing and that we were two women who'd fallen in love and that we had to keep it a secret because nobody would approve. We didn't dare tell a soul." After that summer, with Kathy going to school in San Diego, the two exchanged passionate letters daily for a year.