Since then, she has served eight years in the California State Senate and six years in the State Assembly; she left the legislature in 2008 under California’s term limits statute. She is currently the president of Kuehl Consulting, serving as a consultant to cities and universities on a variety of public policy issues. Ms. Kuehl is now a candidate for the Third Supervisorial District in Los Angeles County. The election will be held in June 2014. She is also the founding director of the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College and a regents’ professor in Public Policy at UCLA. During the 1997-98 legislative session, she was the first woman in California history to be named Speaker pro Tempore of the Assembly. She is also the first openly gay/lesbian person to be elected to the California Legislature. A former pioneering civil rights attorney and law professor, Ms. Kuehl was the chair of the Senate Health Committee, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Water, Energy and Transportation, Speaker pro Tempore of the Assembly and Chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. 
 
Health E-Insights: From where did your show name Zelda Gilroy originate?
 
Ms. Kuehl: It was Max Shulman, the director. That’s how it was written. Shulman had always used unusual names. He wrote all the characters for the series.
 
Health E-Insights: Do you still have contact with Dwayne Hickman, a.k.a. Dobie Gillis?
 
Ms. Kuehl: I don’t see him very often. He’s well and out and about. We e-mail back and forth and send birthday cards. It’s the extent of our communications. Every 10 years on my zero birthday I decide I will sing for 250 of my closest friends. I rehearse with a trio. And Dwayne and his wife and son will come to that event. So I see him at least every 10 years.
 
Health E-Insights: Can you envision getting back into showbiz?
 
Ms. Kuehl: I don’t miss showbiz, although I might want to do one more series as I get toward the end of my life—maybe something interesting like Betty White. After my entertainment industry work was over I worked at UCLA and then decided to go to law school. I went to Harvard. It was a wonderful revelation that you could actually earn a living by using your brain. Acting takes intelligence, but not intelligence you think up yourself. It’s in the service of a script or part. 
 
Health E-Insights: Was it during your acting career that you decided to enter the law profession?
 
Ms. Kuehl: No, never. I thought I’d be an actor forever. I perceived that rumors started going around that I was gay, which turned out to be a true rumor. The phone stopped ringing. I did one more series after Dobie, and the phone never rang again. I couldn’t make a living as an actor. I went back to UCLA where I got my undergraduate degree. I started working in the student organizations office where we advised students how to accomplish their goals. Unfortunately, for the student groups I was advising at the end of the 60s, it was a time of great upheaval. My students did a lot of talking, coming around my apartment at night to talk about justice. They said I should go to law school. This was quite a bit after my show biz career fell apart in the early 60s.
 
Health E-Insights: Running for public office was the natural next step?
 
Ms. Kuehl: It didn’t occur to me. I wanted to be an advocate and activist. When I came out of law school the women’s movement was in full bloom. The work I wanted to do was with women’s issues.
 
Health E-Insights: What prompted you (in 1994) to become the first openly gay candidate (and then be elected to the California legislature)?
 
Ms. Kuehl: After term limits were put in place, and I started going to Sacramento to testify before committees, it became clearer to me that it was a job I could probably do with my legal and advocacy background. So I decided to run. I could see the things that I cared about were not getting a lot of attention in Sacramento.
 
Health E-Insights: If you could wave a magic wand and make one change in the world, what would it be?
 
Ms. Kuehl: A lot more income equality. I think the enormous gaps that have grown between the haves and have nots, especially in California—it doesn’t need to be.
 
Health E-Insights: What makes you laugh?
 
Ms. Kuehl: I love going to movies and I love eating out with my friends. It’s very pedestrian in a way, but it just gives me joy. It’s not just laughing. The other night I saw the movie, The Way Way Back. Some of it was funny; some of it painful about what families are really like, especially blended families. I really enjoyed it. But I enjoy The Lone Ranger and Superman too. Something that doesn’t take a lot of brain cells to enjoy.
 
Health E-Insights: Is there a golden rule by which you live?
 
Ms. Kuehl: The golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I really try to live that way.