Famous diarist Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution

Steven Spielberg announced in May that he had accepted the role of executive producer for the ABC mini-series.

The project was originally intended to be a film, but has since developed into a four-hour series.

The series is currently being shot on location in Prague and is scheduled for broadcast at the end of next summer.

"The film will still go ahead, but Steven will not be involved," a UK spokesman for Spielberg told the paper.

"He did not want to do anything that would upset a relative of Anne Frank or do anything to harm her memory."

Supporting role

The Diary of Anne Frank is the work of a Jewish teenager who hid with her family in an attic in Amsterdam for two years, before being betrayed and dying in Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15.

He did not want to do anything that would upset a relative of Anne Frank

Spielberg spokesman

Spielberg, who won a best director Oscar for the Holocaust film Schindler's List, donated �160,000 to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam in 1994.

The 52-year-old filmmaker is also chairman of the Anne Frank Foundation, which has signed a separate agreement with 20th Century Fox to turn Anne's story into a film.

The diaries will be adapted for the big screen by Alfred Uhry, who wrote the Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy starring Jessica Tandy.