Zsa Zsa Gabor suffers 'stroke'

Zsa Zsa Gabor has suffered an apparent stroke at her Bel-Air home and undergone emergency surgery to clear a blocked artery.

The two-hour operation late last night was successful and the 88-year-old actress was expected to return home within three days, husband Frederic von Anhalt said today.

He declined to disclose the name of the Los Angeles hospital.

“She’s in intensive care, critical but stable,” von Anhalt said, adding: “She just didn’t have any feeling. She was numb. She was alert, but she had no feeling in her hand and couldn’t pick up anything.”

The Hungarian native appeared in numerous films including 1952’s Moulin Rouge and Queen of Outer Space in 1958. She appeared on TV specials, talk shows and game shows and as a guest on several series, often playing herself.

In 1989, she slapped a Beverly Hills police officer who stopped her for expired licence plates and she was convicted after a highly publicised trial. She was sentenced to 72 hours in jail and 120 hours of community service at a women’s shelter.

Gabor has been partially paralysed since a 2002 car accident, forcing her to use a wheelchair and walker. A multimillion-dollar family feud over who controls her will spilled into the courtroom last month.

Gabor and ninth husband von Anhalt – to whom she has been married for 19 years - filed an elder abuse suit against daughter Francesca Hilton, claiming she stole $2m by forging her mother’s signature to take out a loan on Gabor’s Bel-Air estate.

Hilton’s father, hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, was Gabor’s second husband. (Gabor is the great-aunt of Paris and Nicky Hilton.)

“She’s under a lot of stress,” von Anhalt said. “She’s still recovering from the accident and there’s the stress with her daughter.”