Sheila Kuehl

Television Due to her radio talent, Kuehl's agent convinced her parents to take her to auditions for a television role. Kuehl was signed to play Jackie, Stuart Erwin's tomboy daughter, in the television series The Stu Erwin Show (also known as Trouble with Father), which ran from 1950 to 1955. Kuehl later recalled "The same 200 kids I think were there for the interview [as had been for the radio audition] and I was called back and called back and called back and eventually I got that part. And beginning in 1950, I did that series for six years." Zelda was originally intended to be a one-shot character in the early Dobie Gillis episode "Love is a Science," but Dobie creator Max Shulman liked Kuehl and had her signed on as a semiregular cast member.

Kuehl later recalled how she landed the part. "Well, when you're an actor with an agent, no matter how old you are, you go on interviews. I went on lots of interviews for lots of guest shots... and I had done two [episodes] on Love that Bob [The Bob Cummings Show] with Bob Cummings and Dwayne Hickman, who played his nephew, and the director Rod Amateau, so I had met all the people who eventually were going to be much of the team for Dobie Gillis. In 1959, I was at UCLA, and I went on an interview for Dobie Gillis and I walked on the set and they all said, 'Oh, hi, we know your work, you're fine. Just go across the street and meet Max Schulman [the writer director].' As it turned out, Max and I were the same height, and he was like buried behind the desk when I walked in. And he said, 'What's the first line?' And I said, 'I love you.' And he said, 'You're hired!

Having signed a contract in 1960 to do 21 shows for the next season of Dobie, that same year Kuehl was elected an officer in both the university student government and in her sorority. On Petticoat Junction, Kuehl joined the Bradley sisters in a band called The Ladybugs, which was created to compete with Beatlemania. Kuehl, along with Jeannine Riley, Pat Woodell, and Linda Kaye Henning appeared as moptop singers performing "I Saw Him Standing There" on a March 1964 episode of Sullivan's show, just weeks after the Beatles had performed "I Saw Her Standing There".

By the end of the decade, acting roles had dried up for her. Though Kuehl "can't state with certainty that she was blacklisted" from further acting jobs over her sexuality, she claims that afterwards, "with few exceptions, the phone stopped ringing." She then joined a handful of other lawyers in trying to assist in crafting legislation on the issue which included a bill that required judges in custody cases to consider evidence of domestic violence.

While in the Assembly, Kuehl served as speaker pro tempore during the 1997–98 legislative session, becoming the first woman in California history to hold the position. Kuehl served three full terms (six years) in the California Assembly, which was the maximum allowed under term limits that had been adopted in 1990.

California State Senate After three terms in the Assembly, Kuehl was elected to the California State Senate in 2000, beating Assemblyman Wally Knox in the Democratic primary and becoming the first openly gay person elected to the Senate. Re-elected in 2004 with 65.7% of the vote, she was repeatedly voted the "smartest" member of the California Legislature.

In 2002 Kuehl co-authored the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act that defined marriage as a civil contract between two persons. The bill went on to pass the state legislature – the first time a state legislative body in the USA voted to approve same-sex marriage rather than respond to a court order to do so. The bill was vetoed on September 7, 2005, by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who held that the matter should be decided by the courts or by popular referendum.

In 2004, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, held that denying homosexuals the right to marry was a violation of the due process clause in the California Constitution and allowed them to go forward (until a later Court order was made). After the mayor's announcement Kuehl presided over a number of same-sex marriages on the steps of San Francisco's City Hall rotunda. Among those whose wedding she officiated was Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg (who authored AB 205, a sweeping domestic partner benefits law) and her partner for twenty-eight years Sharon Stricker (a poet and activist). The couple's newly married son and daughter-in-law were in attendance. Kuehl also officiated over the weddings of Torie Osborn and her partner, Lydia Vaias; Jehan Agrama and Dwora Fried; Patti Giggans and Ellen Ledley; Barrie Levy and Linda Garnets; and Avi Rose and Ron Strochlic. Assemblymember Mark Leno (who had recently introduced a bill to change the family code to allow marriage equality) also attended the ceremonies giving a blessing in English and Hebrew to the couples.

Also in 2004, Kuehl authored Senate Bill 1234, an omnibus act intended to protect Californians from hate crimes, which the bill defined as criminal acts committed in whole or in part because of the victims' actual or perceived disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or association with persons with any of those characteristics. The bill targeted crimes, not First Amendment-protected speech. It also protected undocumented immigrants from deportation due to reporting hate crimes, increased civil protections from discrimination, and provided for law enforcement training concerning crimes against homeless persons and law enforcement response to homelessness; the bill was later enacted into law.

In 2006, Kuehl sponsored a bill to prohibit the adoption by any school district in California of any instructional material that discriminates against persons based on their gender or sexual orientation.

Throughout her career as a legislator, Kuehl took a leadership role on health care policy. Her foremost objective was securing passage of legislation to establish a single-payer health care system in California. SB 840 passed both houses of the legislature in 2006, but was vetoed by Schwarzenegger; it was reintroduced in 2007. SB 840 passed both houses of the California legislature in August 2008 and was, again, vetoed by Schwarzenegger.

On January 28, 2008, The New York Times reported that Kuehl planned to vote against a health care plan sponsored by Governor Schwarzenegger and supported by a majority of Democrats in the Assembly, while opposed by a majority of Republicans. Her opposition along with the opposition of Senator Leland Yee led the Times to predict that California's widely touted healthcare bill – widely but inaccurately called "universal" coverage – would be effectively killed. However, by the time the bill came to the Senate Health Committee, chaired by Kuehl, all but one of the Democratic Senators on the committee had grave doubts about the bill and, after an eleven-hour hearing on the bill and an intervening week to caucus, on January 28, 2008, one Democrat voted yes, three abstained and three (including Kuehl), along with all Republicans, voted in opposition.

During her time in the state Legislature Kuehl authored bills pertaining to domestic violence, child support services, family leave, and discrimination based on gender, disability and sexual orientation. Later when speaking to an interviewer she reflected "I was a women's rights attorney and a law professor. My interest was primarily issues of equality on the basis of gender, whether it was workplace discrimination, protection from domestic violence and sexual assault, child care, custody issues for married women. That was my area of expertise, so we started with that. I had participated in writing virtually all of the domestic violence laws, and then brought bills to expand them once I was [in Sacramento]. I knew, that as the only gay person, it would fall to me to bring protective bills. And I chose the most difficult one first, because anything having to do with children is a flashpoint for the opposition. And so it was very difficult." She assumed office on December 1, 2014, thus becoming the first openly LGBTQ person to ever serve on the Board. As the representative of Los Angeles County's 3rd Supervisorial District, she served nearly two million residents, and was responsible for managing 431 square miles of land stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Los Feliz, and from Venice up to San Fernando. In 2018, she served as chair of the Board of Supervisors.

In her capacity as a supervisor, Kuehl served as chair of the Board of Commissioners of First 5 LA, First Vice Chair of the board of directors of LA Metro, and sat on the Board of the new Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) known as the Clean Power Alliance.

In her first three years on the Board, Kuehl undertook or collaborated in a number of initiatives and motions. A partial list of her work includes raising the minimum wage, creating a Citizens' Oversight Commission for the Sheriff's Department, providing funding and services for LA County's homeless population and those trying to find and keep affordable housing.

Kuehl previously had a ten-year romantic relationship with Torie Osborn, who served as a deputy mayor in L.A.

When running for supervisor Kuehl was asked if she missed acting and responded that the camaraderie in public service mirrored her favorite aspect of acting, and then stated "I suppose if I get to be a supervisor and then I'm termed out, I'll be, you know, fairly elderly but still able to do things, and then I guess my ambition would be to be Betty White for a couple of years."

Reflecting on her political career, Kuehl told an interviewer, "I was very proud of the fact that I wasn't too frightened to run for office as a gay person. [You imagine] people making anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night to tell you you're a horrible person only in worse language than that, or imagine getting spat at. It's the same thing people go through about coming out. But it turns out to be much better than you expect." with Kuehl voting in favor of the ban and referring to the ongoing situation as a "serious health emergency".

In 2022, UCLA named her the Edward A. Dickson Alum of the Year.

On September 14, 2022, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department served Kuehl with a search warrant. The warrant was related to an investigation into Kuehl's involvement with an alleged "pay to play" scheme; a former County official claimed that Kuehl and others improperly awarded a series of contracts for sexual harassment training programs. A few days after the raids, the California Department of Justice took over the investigation. In an August 2024 court-approved agreement ending the investigation, they stated there was "insufficient evidence to support the filing of any criminal charges".

Kuehl did not seek re-election to the Board of Supervisors in 2022.