As a teen, Linda was encouraged to learn and practice playing the piano, something she readily admits was more fear-inducing than fun. "It was always acting, singing and dancing that I loved. Not the horror of performing on the piano in front of an assembled audience of quiet people. I'd forget the piece just before I went out to do the concerto, the panic was too great . This was not anything that gave me pleasure. This was fulfilling somebody else's dream." In addition to piano lessons, she was taught to sing by her mother.

In her senior year, Linda went to audition in a local play, "Smiling The Boy Fell Dead," and landed the part of Dorothea. It was ultimately the play's producer who encouraged her to realize her full potential and pursue acting full time. Torn between wanting to act and her parents' wish for her to attend college, she compromised and enrolled in "The College of William and Mary" in Virginia, but majored in Drama and performed in every play that was possible to do. During summer breaks, she headed for New York to audition for Broadway plays.

After college, Broadway became her home away from home, until she accepted the part of Alice Hyatt in the new television series, "Alice," and was propelled into a new role and a new Hollywood life almost overnight. She recalls the early days of "Alice" in 1976 very well. "A new town, all that pressure -- driving on the freeway is scary enough! It was a brand new life and very exciting. As for her character, even to this day Linda is considered a role model for women across America. As she states, "I discovered that the character of Alice Hyatt represented 80% of the working women in this country, the blue and pink collar women. Hundreds of women have come up to me and said 'It was because of watching Alice that I could get through another day with the baby in a high chair. I knew that if she could do it, I could do it. I could go back to school, I could get off welfare, I could change my life.'"

Linda alternated between New York and Wilmington, North Carolina, the later she discovered when she was producing a television film. She married current husband, Steve Bakunas, in 2005 and together they purchased and renovated a warehouse in Wilmington, transforming it into "Red Barn Studio," a combination art studio, theater and venue for art, acting and music classes. She had an active role in producing and performing in many of it's productions before it sold in 2017.

Previously, her first marriage to actor Ron Leibman ended in 1980, and a tumultuous second marriage to Kip Niven, who appeared several times as guest actor on "Alice," ended in divorce in 1992. Niven sued for $11 million dollars as part of the settlement but in the end lost the case. Linda does admit to keeping in touch with Niven's two children, Jim and Katie, whom she helped raise and has a good relationship.