Quigley was born on May 27, 1958 in Davenport, Iowa, the daughter of Dorothy (November 29, 1922 – December 21, 2009) and William Heath Quigley (June 27, 1915 – May 18, 2006). Her father was a chiropractor and psychologist. He worked as an executive vice president at Palmer College of Chiropractic. An only child, Quigley attended Garfield Elementary and Sudlow Middle schools in Davenport. In 1972, she began attending Bettendorf High School in Bettendorf, Iowa. Quigley later reminisced about her school years: “I was so shy. I didn’t move my mouth, didn’t sing in glee club or anything like that, didn’t do any plays. I was terribly, terribly shy.”

Shortly after graduating from high school in 1976, Quigley moved with her parents to Los Angeles. She landed a job at Jack LaLanne’s health spa, where she met models who worked in films by doing work as extras. Encouraged by her friends, Quigley began taking acting and guitar-playing classes. One of her earliest acting jobs was a television commercial for the Close-Up toothpaste. After getting a few extra parts, she got her first acting role in the Charles Band-produced erotic comedy Fairy Tales (1978), wherein she appeared as Sleeping Beauty. Her next role was in the pseudo-documentary Auditions (1978), again produced by Band and directed by Harry Hurwitz. She continued receiving small parts in films such as Don’t Go Near the Park (1981) and the Troma slasher Graduation Day (1981). She was given the role of Dolores after the original actress refused to do nude scenes. In 1981, the producer and director Jim Feazell decided to shoot some additional footage for the reissue of his unsuccessful 1975 psychological thriller Wheeler. In one of the scenes, Quigley played a waitress menaced by a truck driver. The movie was re-released under the title The Hurting and later changed to Psycho from Texas.

Linnea’s father was Dr. William “Nip” Heath Quigley, a Dean of Education and Vice President at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA. Her mother Dorothy was a homemaker. After she graduated from Bettendorf High School in 1976, she moved to California with her parents when her father became the president of the Los Angeles campus of Palmer College. He left the college in the late 1980s to open a private practice.

Besides modeling and auditioning for films, Quigley also began auditioning for bands that would let her join in. She first played guitar in an all-female band, Mad Whistle, started by the singer and songwriter Lucrecia Sarita Russo. Russo’s then-husband Jeffrey Spry appeared alongside Quigley in the film Graduation Day with his band Felony. Quigley then managed to form her own band called The Skirts. Her friend Haydee Pomar, whom she met on the set of Cheech & Chong’s comedy Nice Dreams (1981), played the bass guitar. They practiced in the basement of the punk rock club The Masque and their music got featured in some of Quigley’s later movies. Their song “Santa Monica Blvd. Boy” was released on Mystic Records’ 1983 compilation The Sound of Hollywood Girls.

During the filming of Night of the Demons (1988), Quigley began a relationship with special effects artist Steve Johnson. Later, while working on the film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), Johnson proposed to Quigley on the set. “I actually got engaged on the set of that movie right after coming out of Freddy’s chest. He gave me a ring so that was funny. While he’s hosing my K-Y Jelly off me and after it fell over almost killing us and some others, he still managed to ask me to marry him.” They married on January 17, 1990 but divorced in 1992.

Quigley is a vegan. She switched to a vegetarian diet in the late 1970s after her move to Los Angeles, first by eliminating red meat, then chicken and fish, and eventually all dairy and all other foods from animals. She is an animal rights activist and an active member of the animal rights organization PETA. In October 1990, she appeared on the cover of Vegetarian Times. However, the cover story met with heavy criticism from the readers attacking Quigley for appearing in films that depict violence against women.

According to public records, Linnea was married to Gerald Wayne Carter Jr. on March 22, 2004 in Pompano Beach, FL. They divorced the same year.

According to her father’s obituary in the Quad-City Times published on May 24, 2006, she was married to Frank J. NaCarlo of Pompano Beach, FL.

Linnea co-starred with Daniel Baldwin in Stripperland (2011). She played in David DeCoteau’s movies 1313: Cougar Cult (2012) and 3 Scream Queens (2014) and Charles Band’s web series Trophy Heads (2014) with Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer. In 2012, Quigley guest appeared in Massachusetts death metal band Sexcrement’s music video entitled “Trucker Bombed”.