They moved to Barreiro, just south of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in the Setúbal District, where she went to primary school.

Her debut was in The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, but it was her performance in the play John Gabriel Borkman by Henrik Ibsen, which won several awards and was shown on television, that attracted the attention of Luís Miguel Cintra and Jorge Silva Melo who, in 1973, invited her to join the founding nucleus of Teatro da Cornucópia theatre group in Lisbon, where she would perform almost thirty plays by writers such as Dario Fo and August Strindberg, debuting in The Misanthrope by Molière.

In 1986 she received the Best Actress Award from the Portuguese Association of Theatre Critics for her performance in Strindberg's Easter.

Maria left the Malaposta in 1992 and only appeared on one more occasion on the stage, during the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition.

Her performances on television brought her closer to the general public, particularly with appearances in humorous series such as Os Malucos do Riso, Bora Lá, Marina and Aventuras de Camilo.