Joely Kim Richardson appeared as an extra at the age of three in the 1968 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade directed by her father. After an early leading role in Peter Greenaway's cult success Drowning by Numbers, her first major role in front of a mass audience was as Joanna Farley in a 1989 television episode of Poirot, the Agatha Christie-based detective series. She later appeared as a fictional Finnish princess, Anna, in the 1991 comedy King Ralph. Two years later, she appeared as Lady Chatterley in a television drama of the same title. One year later she played opposite Mel Gibson in the successful film, The Patriot , loosely based on the American Revolution. In 2003, she took on the major role of playing Julia McNamara in the controversial television drama Nip/Tuck based on the lives of two dysfunctional plastic surgeons in Miami. Her mother has appeared in several episodes playing her character's mother. Julia McNamara is Sean McNamara's wife of 18 years, mother to Matt McNamara, Annie McNamara, and Conor McNamara. She dropped out of medical school to raise her children, became extremely bitter about this, which lead to the tension that ultimately resulted in the end of her marriage to Sean. Former co-owner of De La Mer, a day spa for surgery patients in recovery, she recently gave birth to a third child - her second with Sean - who suffers from ectrodactyly, "lobster claw syndrome."