Sheila James Kuehl (born February 9, 1941) is an American politician and former child actress, currently the member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for District 3. She most recently served as a Democratic member of the California State Senate, representing the 23rd district in Los Angeles County and parts of southern Ventura County. A former member of the California State Assembly, she was elected to the Senate in 2000 and served until December 2008. She was elected to her supervisorial post in 2014.

Biographie

As a young actress with the stage name Sheila James, Kuehl played Jackie, Stuart Erwin's tomboy daughter, in the television series, Trouble With Father, later retitled The Stu Erwin Show. She is better known for her portrayal of the "irrepressible" Zelda Gilroy in the CBS television series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The running gag was Zelda's roaring crush on Dobie and his resistance to her advances. The program spawned two sequels, an unsold television pilot, Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? (1978) and TV movie Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis (1988). In these, Dobie had married Zelda and had a son named Georgie, who was much like Dobie had been at his age. Kuehl reprised her Zelda role in both updates.

James appeared in other television series, including the NBC family drama National Velvet. When The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis ended in 1963, James was cast as a model on an episode of ABC's The Donna Reed Show. She appeared on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show with part of the cast of Petticoat Junction as the fourth member of "The Ladybugs", a take-off on the Beatles. In the episode "The Ladybugs", she portrayed their friend Sally. She was also in two episodes of CBS's The Beverly Hillbillies as Virginia "Ginny" Jennings.

James co-starred with Kathleen Nolan, formerly of The Real McCoys, in the short-lived ABC television series Broadside, a female version of the hit show McHale's Navy, during the 1964-1965 season. After the show's cancellation, she got a job as a campus adviser to student groups at UCLA and eventually became an associate dean of students. At age 34, as Sheila Kuehl, she was admitted into Harvard Law School, where she excelled. She was elected class marshal and president of law school student council. In 1978, her final year at the law school, she chaired the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1953 graduation of the first group of women to be admitted to the law school. That same academic year, she became the first woman to win "Best Oralist" in the law school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition, judged by a panel including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.