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 Nevins
Nevins was born to a Jewish family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City to Stella Nevins (née Rosenberg), a chemist, and Benjamin Nevins, a Russian immigrant post office worker who was also a bookie. Nevins' family was very poor and her mother suffered from an acute form of Raynaud's disease, which resulted in amputations of her limbs, and scleroderma. Nevins has a younger sister (born 1946) who is a doctor.