Mistakes but no regrets says Britney Spears' mom

ynne Spears says every mother makes mistakes but she has no regrets about letting her daughters Britney and Jamie Lynn pursue their dreams of stardom.

"I think you have to let them follow their dreams. I think it would be worse in the end if you didn't," Spears, 53, told People magazine in an interview marking the publication next week of her much-anticipated memoir.

As Britney's star rose, Spears said she felt she was losing control over both her daughter and how she was portrayed.

"I let other people talk me out of things that I felt a gut instinct about," she told People.

The memoir "Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World," is published by Thomas Nelson, a Christian publisher of bibles and inspirational books.

It chronicles Spears' family during the phenomenal rise of Britney Spears in the late 199Os and her highly publicized meltdown.

Originally planned for a May release, the book was postponed in January after Jamie Lynn Spears, then 16, announced in a celebrity magazine that she was pregnant.

In excerpts from the memoir to be published in Friday's People magazine, Spears rejected criticism that she was a pushy stage mother or had sought to profit from the careers of her daughters.

"I simply did not have the huge ambitions for (Britney) that I have been accused of," she writes. "Much has been written about how we were counting on our daughter to rescue us from financial ruin. Ha!"

Despite an estrangement that meant she watched on television the ordeal of Britney shaving her head in February 2007 and being taken to the hospital in hysterics last January, Spears said that Jamie Lynn's pregnancy was the hardest time of her life.

Spears writes that she was shocked, angry and saddened when Jamie Lynn, whom she had thought was a virgin, broke the news by handing her mother a note which read "Mama, I'm pregnant. I'm going to keep the baby and everything is going to be okay."

The former star of the Nickelodeon teen TV hit "Zoey 101" gave birth in June to a girl and is now raising the baby with her boyfriend in their Mississippi home.

"Every mother makes mistakes and I'm no different," writes Spears, who has been harshly criticized in the media for her parenting skills.

Spears said she first felt she was losing control in 1999 when Britney, then 17, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in her underwear. She said the magazine photographer had taken Britney into her bedroom alone during the shoot.

"When I saw the cover, my heart sank and my face burned," wrote Spears, who quit her teaching job in 2002 to join Britney on tour.

Spears, who has been criticized for parenting skills, told People she "wanted the truth out in her own words for myself and my family."

The memoir hits stores a week after a happy looking, glamorous Britney Spears collected three statuettes at the MTV Video Music Awards after two years in which her trips to court, to rehab and to hospitals overshadowed her career.

In the past nine months, Britney's father has taken over management of her affairs, she has settled a bruising divorce and child custody battle and is working on her sixth album, which will be released in 2009.

Seattle’s Conductor Plans His Departure

Gerard Schwarz, who has led the Seattle Symphony Orchestra during its rise to national prominence as well as periods of extraordinary tumult, said on Wednesday that he would step down as music director when his contract expires in 2011.

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Frank Capri

Gerard Schwarz, 61, music director of the Seattle Symphony, says he will leave in 2011, after what will be 26 years.

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Times Topics: Gerard Schwarz

By then Mr. Schwarz, 61, will have been in the job for 26 seasons, a remarkably long tenure in an age of jet-set conductors and one that harks back to the years of iron-baton maestros who seemed to serve for life.

In an interview, Mr. Schwarz said he wanted to ride out on a high. “I’m at the top,” he said. “The orchestra sounds great. The audience is huge, supportive, a phenomenal community. We balanced the budget again for a second year running. We’re making records.

“If you’re going to go, this is the time to go, when you’re on track.”

He also said he was happy to shed the “huge administrative responsibilities” of music director and focus more on music-making. The orchestra said it would name him conductor laureate and guarantee him several weeks of concerts a year. He said he had no other engagements planned.

Mr. Schwarz, a native of Weehawken, N.J., and graduate of Juilliard, became music adviser of the symphony in 1983 and music director in 1985. The orchestra has acquired national standing during his tenure.

It performed at Carnegie Hall, released scores of recordings, garnered Grammy nominations and acquired a loyal base of subscribers and patrons. Mr. Schwarz was also instrumental in the building of the orchestra’s acoustically prized home, Benaroya Hall. He said it would be a “fitting time” to leave after the hall celebrates its 10th anniversary this season.

Mr. Schwarz was also considered a skilled fund-raiser. In fact, the orchestra is initiating a three-year endowment drive to coincide with his final period in the job. The goal, according to the board chairwoman, Susan Hutchison, is to build the endowment to $100 million. It now stands at $30 million, considered extremely low for an orchestra of its size, with an annual budget of $22 million.

Despite his successes, Mr. Schwarz was also the subject of complaints by some board members and many players, who criticized his musicianship and what they called a harsh, vindictive nature, portrayals that Mr. Schwarz has steadfastly rebutted over the years. Some of his critics in the orchestra welcomed the news on Wednesday.

“I’m ecstatic,” John Weller, a violinist, said minutes after Mr. Schwarz made the announcement to the players at the end of a recording session. “I’m on top of a cloud right now.”

“There is a God,” he added, saying that it felt like a “crushing burden” had been lifted.

Mr. Schwarz and orchestra officials asserted that the criticism played no part in his decision..

“There are those musicians who dislike their leader in any orchestra in the world,” Mr. Schwarz said. “That’s just the way it is.” He acknowledged that it was natural that some members would be happy with his departure.

Mr. Schwarz said he began thinking seriously about leaving at the end of last season and told Ms. Hutchison last month. Orchestra officials said that the decision was not a surprise.

“This is something which has been coming for a while,” said Thomas Philion, the executive director. “The timing and all of that was something very much in Gerry’s court.” He said a search would begin for a successor.

Mr. Schwarz signed his latest contract, to last through the 2010-11 season, in 2006. At the time, he denied a report that the board had agreed to the contract on condition that it be his last. “In three years’ time,” he then told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “we will all decide whether I have overstayed my welcome.”

But the signing set off a storm of internal dissent among many orchestra members who had long chafed at his authority.

The players’ leadership committee carried out a survey of the musicians that amounted to a resounding vote of no confidence in Mr. Schwarz. They voted 61-8 in favor of new artistic leadership, and 61-12 for the formation of a search committee. Orchestra management quashed the survey’s release, but the results were published in an article last December in The New York Times outlining the years of turmoil at the symphony, including two lawsuits filed against Mr. Schwarz that were ultimately dismissed. The survey included comments favorable to Mr. Schwarz but others that were deeply critical.

In another bit of turmoil that followed the contract extension, Mr. Schwarz’s close friend and ally, the principal horn player, John Cerminaro, said he was a victim of vandalism and threats. Critics of Mr. Schwarz suggested that the report was false and designed to discredit them.

Mr. Schwarz was a young trumpeter in the New York Philharmonic with Mr. Cerminaro in the 1970s. He left in 1977 to conduct, serving most notably as music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival from 1984 to 2001. He parted company with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006 after friction with the musicians there.

Anne Hathaway breaks silence on boyfriend arrest

Actress Anne Hathaway says she felt like "a rug was pulled out from under me" when her Italian boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, was arrested on fraud charges and that she is still looking for a new place to live.

"As soon as I found out about the arrest, I had to get on a plane to Mexico to do a press tour for 'Get Smart.' And then I spent a week in shock at a friend's house. And then I had to go back and do more press, and I haven't stopped since," Hathaway, 25, was quoted as saying.

Hathaway declined to discuss specifics about Follieri or what she knew abut his business dealings. But the actress said she had been staying at a friend's house since moving out of the New York apartment she shared with Follieri, which was searched by investigators.

"I have to find a place to live," she told the magazine. "It's a situation where the rug was pulled out from under me all of a sudden, but just as suddenly my friends threw another rug back under me."

Follieri, 30, pleaded guilty in New York on Wednesday to 14 counts of fraud and money laundering. He admitted to lying about his links to the Vatican and taking part in a scheme in which he obtained more than $2 million in a web of shell companies with phony consultancies.

When he is sentenced in October, he could face years behind bars. He also has agreed to hand over gold and silver watches, rings, bracelets and earrings that he had given to Hathaway.

Prosecutors said Follieri used money from his scheme to buy expensive clothes, meals and a $37,000-a-month Manhattan apartment, as well exotic vacations and private jets for his girlfriend.

"I've been shown such kindness. Not everyone gets that. A lot of people go through tough times alone," Hathaway said.

MSNBC Bombs in Blogosphere

The decision by MSNBC to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duty during live political events did not exactly send a thrill up the leg of liberal bloggers.

A number of them denounced the cable channel yesterday for making a change that had long been sought by NBC News veterans, saying MSNBC was caving into pressure from John McCain's campaign and the right wing.

MSNBC President Phil Griffin denied that complaints from either Republicans or NBC journalists were a factor. He said he reached the decision after "talking to my guys, mainly Olbermann," after the Republican convention. Olbermann and Matthews will remain as analysts during such major political events as the presidential debates.

"We came to the conclusion it was better not to restrain them" by making them wear "two hats," Griffin said. "It's not like we haven't talked about this all along. What Keith can say on 'Countdown' and what Chris can say on 'Hardball' is a little different" than what they could tell viewers in the role of news anchors.

In the liberal blogosphere, Olbermann -- an occasional contributor to the Daily Kos site -- is viewed as a heroic truth-teller who has now been undermined by network suits whose company is owned by General Electric. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo called the move "pathetic," writing: "It seems pretty obvious that the network got cowed by complaints from the McCain campaign."

Salon's Glenn Greenwald called it "extraordinary for a media company to publicly embarrass, diminish and tarnish its own principal asset. It is plainly doing so for ideological, not ratings-based, reasons: namely, it fears doing anything to anger the White House, the McCain campaign and the right in this country."

Not all liberal bloggers agreed. Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left attributed the shift to "pressure from journalists, other media professionals and quite possibly advertisers who convinced MSNBC that the partisan coverage of live news events was tarnishing not just MSNBC's, but also NBC's reputation as a credible news organization."

NBC staffers say the network's old guard, led by veteran anchor Tom Brokaw, has been complaining since February about the way Olbermann and Matthews favor Barack Obama. Tensions boiled over during the conventions, they say, when NBC reporters grabbed newsmakers on the floor but were often ignored as the anchor duo kept talking.

The complaints grew louder when Olbermann praised the Democratic speeches by Obama and Hillary Clinton but likened GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin after her speech to the obnoxious Reese Witherspoon character in the movie "Election." Things reached the point where HBO's liberal comic Bill Maher, riffing on MSNBC's coverage of Obama, said: "I mean, these guys were ready to have sex with him."

Griffin said he is handing the anchor role to NBC correspondent David Gregory because he is "as good a newsman as there is in television news," and also "a part of MSNBC" as host of its 6 p.m. show. Gregory, a contender to take over "Meet the Press" next year, declined to comment.

Media critics have questioned for months how Olbermann (who told McCain to "grow up" in an on-air editorial) and Matthews (who said that an Obama speech sent "a thrill going up my leg") could, for instance, anchor coverage of the political conventions.

"Not only was the opinion too overt, but the rancor was getting to be a bit much, and I must say a bit amateurish," said Terence Smith, a former correspondent for the New York Times, CBS and PBS. He said network officials "failed to take the defensive step they could have taken, which is to label them commentators. . . . It just got hopelessly muddled. I'm not surprised it reached a point where they found it embarrassing."

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'Fringe' sent Joshua Jackson to the ER — awesome!

Joshua Jackson returns to TV tonight with the premiere of J.J. Abrams' Fringe (Fox, 8 p.m. ET). Last month, I stole a few moments with Jackson at his photo shoot for EW's Fall TV Preview issue — read Doc Jensen's piece on the X-Files-esque drama here — and found out why he was drawn to the role of a man described as a "massive pain in the ass" in the pilot; what scene in a later episode sent him to the emergency room; and how much he reminds me of a mini-Clooney.* Watch the video below.

* Charming things you won't see him do in the video, because our camera wasn't rolling:

1) Model the pair of purple satin shoes that a delusional stylist brought to the shoot for him to consider wearing.

2) Tell his publicist that he didn't know what kind of caffeine there was left to put in his body, so yes, it was time to move on to beer for his next photo shoot (his fourth and final of that Sunday).

3) Sit down on a couch beside me after I patted the seat. Reluctantly share that he was exhausted from an 80-hour work week and that he had a 7 a.m. call time the next morning. Check the messages on his cell phone, shout F---! repeatedly, and explain that his call time had just been moved up an hour.

4) Walk across the room to say goodbye to our four-person video crew and shake our hands again before he left.

For more with Jackson — and to watch Michael Ausiello grill Abrams about Lost at the Fringe premiere party — catch the latest episode of Ausiello TV.

For EW.com's Comic-Con conversation with Fringe's stars, click here.

For more Fall TV coverage, head here. Fun!

NBC Universal in pact for Google to sell its TV ads

NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co, is teaming up with Google Inc on a multi-year partnership in which Google will act as a broker to sell TV advertising on some NBC cable channels.

In a joint statement, the two companies said NBC Universal will offer advertising time from several of its cable networks for Google to sell advertising through its Google TV Ads service.

The deal, set to go into effect in coming months, covers advertising inventory on Sci Fi, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, Sleuth, and Chiller, with more NBC Universal channels possible in the future, the companies said.

"Advertisers using the Google TV Ads platform can reach NBCU Cable's national audience and gain access to viewership data at an unprecedented scale," the NBC Universal and Google statement said.

Mike Pilot, president of NBC Universal sales and marketing, and Tim Armstrong, Google's president of advertising and commerce for North America, said that the partnership would make TV ads more accountable.

Through an existing deal with DISH Network, the Google TV Ads service can report second-by-second TV usage data allowing advertisers to measure viewership of their ads more precisely. The NBC-Google partnership extrapolates on the data supplied by Dish set-top boxes in millions of U.S. homes.

NBC Universal and Google have also agreed to work together to adapt the Google TV Ad service for use in local TV markets. They are also collaborating on custom marketing and research projects using Google TV Ads to survey audience trends.

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch in New York and Eric Auchard in San Francisco, editing by Leslie Gevirtz).