Rente made her first performance in Portalegre when she was 12 years old, in the role of a beggar in a religious drama
A Rainha Santa Isabel (The Saintly Queen Isabel). At the age of 15 she moved to Lisbon with her mother, living with her godmother, the actress
Emília Adelaide, who came from the same parish. The director of the
Teatro da Trindade, Francisco Palha, gave her a small role in a comedy that premiered on 30 October 1872. In November 1874, she debuted professionally at the
D. Maria II National Theatre. This led to several further roles, including in
Les Femmes Savantes by Molière. Rente married when she was 16 on 14 April 1874 to Eduardo Augusto Henriques Franco, a reporter for the
Diário de Notícias newspaper. They would later separate without having had children. For many years she lived with a Lisbon goldsmith. She remained at the D. Maria II theatre until 1877, when she moved to the
Teatro do Ginásio with the Santos & Pinto Company. She stayed there for several years, always in leading roles, also making tours to
Porto and other Portuguese cities. In 1883, she went to
Brazil, and later,
Madrid and
Barcelona, together with the
D. Maria II theatre company. In 1900, Rente left the
Ginásio and went to the
Teatro da Rua dos Condes, where she stayed until 1902, performing comedy, drama and operetta. In 1902, she returned to the
D. Maria II. However, at this time, a decline in her mental health began. She showed symptoms of melancholy, allegedly caused by the way she was treated by some professional colleagues on her return to
D. Maria II. She also suffered from a worsening liver disease. ==Death==