Emília Adelaide Pimentel was born on 1 November 1836, in the parish of Sé, close to Portalegre in the east of Portugal.

[1][2][3] Adelaide started acting on the advice of Ernesto Biester [pt], a playwright, director and impresario, with whom she had an affair.

When she returned to Lisbon she demanded that it be presented, with a translation by Biester, enabling her to apply all of the acting techniques she had learned while in Paris.

She was then hired by the impresario Francisco Palha to join the company of the Teatro da Trindade, which was at the time under construction.

The financial success of the tour encouraged her to form a larger company (Companhia Dramática Portugueza de Emília Adelaide Pimentel), but this was to prove unprofitable.

[1][4] After retirement from the stage, she went back to Rio de Janeiro where she founded an important fashion business, returning to Lisbon in 1902.

Already relatively forgotten by the public, and away from the stage, living modestly with her sister, Emília Adelaide Pimentel died on 11 September 1905, being buried in the Prazeres Cemetery.