Zelda K. Gilroy,[1] portrayed by Sheila Kuehl, is a character from the American sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which originally aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963.
[2] "Love is a Science" was one of several of the Shulman short stories adapted by the author for the Dobie Gillis television program.
[2] Originally intended to play Zelda as a one-shot in the TV adaptation of "Love is a Science" on Dobie Gillis in 1959, Sheila Kuehl was upped to recurring and then semi-regular by the show's second season, and continued to appear throughout the run of the program.
[4][5] Sheila Kuehl, at the time a closeted lesbian and later an openly gay politician in California, later recalled that Dobie Gillis and Zelda producer/director Rod Amateau told her one day that CBS executive James T. Aubrey had found the Zelda character "too butch".
In both productions, the two had a teenaged son named Georgie (played by Steven Paul in 1977 and Scott Grimes in 1988), who was much like Dobie was at his age.