Joely quits Nip/Tuck to take care of her ill daughter

She chose work and made her way the top of her game as a highly-paid star of one of American's most popular television dramas, Nip/Tuck.

However Miss Richardson has now stunned producers of the show by telling them she is quitting to return to the UK to care for her daughter.

She has revealed for the first time that Daisy has a rare medical condition which she was diagnosed with shortly after her first birthday.

The teenageer is due to undergo a series of operations on her legs after gradually developing circulation problems in her veins over the years.

The condition, which Miss Richardson, 41, has never spoken of before, is understood to weaken the valves and walls of the veins making them less efficient at circulating blood back to her heart.

"Surgeons and hospitals have been a big part of our lives. We were always told that she would have to have more surgery when she got older. The time has come," the actress revealed.

Speaking of her departure from the plastic surgery drama, she said: "What the future holds, nobody can say. It's all up in the air. And I don't know if I will ever be here (in Hollywood) again.

"I love my work. But I had to be in two places at once and I thought, 'If it were all over tomorrow, what would I regret?' It would be not being there for her.

"It had to be done but it was scary."

Joely, who spends six months of the year in London and six months in Los Angeles, added she felt rather concerned that she had not forewarned producers of the show: "You think, 'Oh my God, are they going to sue me?"

Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy said: "It was sad, but Joely came before her character. The dynamic of the show changed with the difficulty of what she was going through (personally), plus what she is going through on the show this season playing the mother of a deformed baby. That said, Joely is the best she has ever been."

Murphy said he was praying the actress would make it back for the next season of the show: "I don't want to do the show without her," he said.

Miss Richardson, who earns £3 million a year from Nip/Tuck, is divorced from Daisy's father, film producer Tim Bevan, but they still get on and share custody.

Miss Richardson, the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late Tony Richardson, plays highly-strung mother, Julia in the series. She has also dated her co-star John Hensley, who curiously plays her teenage son Matt, despite being only 12 years younger than her.

Despite having achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic - notable roles include the film Maybe Baby and the BBC adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover - Miss Richardson's love-life has not gone as smoothly.

At the age of 24 she embarked on a fling with Scottish landowner Archie Stirling who was more than twice her age and also married to actress Diana Rigg.

Stirling subsequently chose his wife and teenage daughter Rachael over Miss Richardson, leaving her distraught.

In 1992, she married director Bevan, co-founder of Working Title, the studio behind Bridget Jones's Diary.

Bevan left her for 24-year-old Amy Gadney and Miss Richardson filed for divorce in 1997. A fling with Robbie Williams and a year-long romance with television presenter Jamie Theakston followed.