Zsa Zsa Gabor is to have part of her leg amputated.

The 93-year-old actress was taken to hospital yesterday to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles to undergo surgery as gangrene was setting in to her right limb.

"She developed a lesion on the leg that had swollen a while back and caused her to go to the hospital for treatment, but it has not responded. In fact, it has increased in size, and the doctors have wanted to operate for several days. They're going to have to amputate part of her leg. They said if they didn't, she could lose her life," said her representative John Blanchette.

Although she had been warned to go to hospital earlier, Zsa Zsa had been keen to spend the Christmas and New Year period with her husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt.

"Frederic and Zsa Zsa asked if they could spend New Year's at home, and they shared champagne and caviar. The doctors came to the house today, and when they unwrapped the bandages, they saw that the wound had festered and they were afraid of gangrene developing, which would be life-threatening," Blanchette said yesterday.

The Hollywood legend has been in and out of hospital since suffering from two blood clots following hip surgery last July and was last admitted in November after her doctor discovered she had developed a "massive blood clot" in her leg. Zsa Zsa was initially taken to hospital after falling out of bed following the surgery and at one point, a priest was called in to read the star her last rites.