She was best known for her recurring comedy role of vaudevillian showgirl Trixie O'Toole in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96,[1] usually sharing scenes with co-stars Wendy Blacklock and Mike Dorsey.
Her aunt Eilleen Pascoe Webb ran an elocution and dance school in Melbourne, and her mother, known professionally as Eris O'Dell, worked for the Tivoli circuit and J.C. Williamson, as a singer, actress and dancer and also played piano, and was an assistant producer to Jack Davey at the Macquarie theatre radio and to Wallace Parnell at the Tivoli, Adele did not know her father.
In the 1970s she moved into television with guest spots in the Crawford Productions police dramas Homicide and Division 4.
Subsequent to this she was spotted by Number 96 producer Bill Harmon in a pantomime show and he devised the character of Trixie – a warm and funny stage and nightclub entertainer who has been treading the boards for years – for her.
When joining the series Adele happily signed the nudity clause present in all cast member's contracts, reasoning that she would never be called upon to strip.
These included High Tide (1987), for which she won a Best Actress Award from the Australian Film Institute, Daisy and Simon (1988), ...Almost (1990), Greenkeeping (1992), Fatal Bond (1992) and The Sum of Us (1994).