Kellie Everts, née Rasa Sofija Jakstas, was born on July 16, 1945, in Calw, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Her Lithuanian parents, Stasys and Regina Jakstas, had fled from Lithuania (then part of the Soviet Union) under Stalin.

The family ended up in a displaced persons camp, and in 1949, boarded the naval ship USS Heintzelman bound for the US.

A month after finishing high school, she ran away (reportedly with one of Marilyn Monroe's photographers) to Hollywood, CA, where she began a career in show business.

She started a successful business and managed to acquire $200,000 in savings, which she used to buy a house in Binghamton, in Upstate New York, where she has lived ever since.

Everts was effectively the founder of female bodybuilding; before her involvement, it was extremely rare for women to participate in the sport.

[2] Due to her work, which included a 6-page layout in Esquire magazine in July 1975, television appearances on To Tell the Truth, The Mike Douglas Show and The Stanley Siegel Show, and inaugurating female bodybuilding in Playboy magazine in May 1977, serious female fitness and bodybuilding contests began to be held.

[2] Despite having single-handedly laid the groundwork for female bodybuilding and having trained for the event, she was barred from entering the 1981 Caesar's Palace Boardwalk Regency IFBB in Atlantic City.

[9][10][11][12] "Stripping for God" created public debate about the coexistance of sexuality and spirituality, and conflicted with prevailing social norms and constructs at the time.

On June 16, 1978, she preached a message about Our Lady of Fátima in front of the White House, intending to bring about the conversion of Russia and, by extension, preventing a potential nuclear World War III.

[27] She has also collaborated with other authors as well in writing books and online articles, most notably including William Bond, who is also featured on that site.