Maeve Quinlan was born in Chicago and she is the daughter of Irish immigrants. At 16 years old Maeve entered the professional tennis course. Quinlan has also taken part in several major tournaments and ultimately reached the seed position #95 in world rankings, because of which she got and scholarship to both USC and Northwestern universities, where Quinlan studied theater. After an injury, Maeve quit tennis and pursued an acting career, starting with parts in commercials for Nike and Gatorade.

Quinlan has also appeared regularly on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Maeve has played the role of Megan Conley from 1995 - 2000. In March 2006 she returned for a three-week guest-starring role on the show. One of her most famous roles was that of "Rhonda" in the 2002 movie "Ken Park".

Actress also acted in the unsuccessful comedy "Totally Blonde" in 2001, and in 2007, the popular web series "GirlTrash". Quinlan has also starred in the 2009 movie "Not Easily Broken" with Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson. Maeve is at present both co-producing and starring in "3Way", a web series about roommates which features lesbian characters, with Jill Bennett, Maile Flanagan, and Cathy Shim.