Zsa Zsa Gabor faces amputation

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Doctors are treating Zsa Zsa Gabor with powerful antibiotics in hopes of avoiding amputating part of her leg.

Her publicist, John Blanchette, said Monday that the 93-year-old actress would continue receiving treatment at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center over the next couple of days. Her husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, brought her to the hospital Sunday night and doctors thought they might have to amputate part of her right leg below the knee because of the onset of gangrene.

“The lesion is apparently very deep. They’re afraid it may be into the bone, which would not be good,” Blanchette said. “Before taking that drastic measure, they want to give it one last chance with some really poweful antibiotics.” Blanchette added that the lesion has grown from about an inch a couple of months ago to almost a foot now.

Gabor broke her hip and had replacement surgery in July and has been hospitalized several times since for swelling in her legs and blood clots throughout her body. She has used a wheelchair since she was partially paralyzed in a 2002 car accident, and she had a stroke in 2005.

A Hungarian-born sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s, Gabor had a brief and unremarkable film career, appearing in films ranging from “Moulin Rouge” in 1952 to “Queen of Outer Space” in 1958, and she had no regular television role like her sister Eva had on “Green Acres.”

Her primary role was herself — appearing on TV specials and game shows, as a guest on several television series, and in real-life dramas such as her slapping of a Beverly Hills policeman in 1989 that led to a brief jail term.