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.
Makila James
She attended Cornell University, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree with a double major Africana Studies and American History in 1979. There she was one of a relatively few African-American members of the Quill and Dagger society. She has said that her dual study program and her involvement at the Cornell Africana Studies and Research Center had a strong impact on the direction her career took, that from the beginning of her time at Cornell she wanted to be "a woman in front of the train," and that she finds it encouraging that the Africana program was still going strong.