A Hallmark Channel executive wanted to replace “old talent,” offering actors Holly Robinson Peete and Lacey Chabert as examples, a new lawsuit against the studio claims. Hallmark denies the allegations.
Penny Perry, who worked as a top casting director at Hallmark for a decade, filed the age discrimination and wrongful termination complaint on October 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
In documents seen by The Independent, 79-year-old Perry alleged that Lisa Hamilton Daly – Hallmark’s executive vice president of programming – said the network’s roster of holiday movie talent “keeps getting older and we need to find replacements for them.”
“Our leading ladies are aging out. We need to find new talent to take their place,” Hamilton Daly told Perry, according to the filing. The executive allegedly specified longtime Hallmark actors Chabert, 42, Peete, 60, and Teri Hatcher, 59, as “old talent” who needed to be “replaced.”
“Lacey’s getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older,” Hamilton Daly said about the Mean Girls star, per the lawsuit. As for Peete, Hamilton Daly allegedly said “no one wants her because she’s too expensive and getting too old. She can’t play leading roles anymore.”
In response to the lawsuit, Hallmark said in a statement: “Lacey and Holly have a home at Hallmark. We do not generally comment on pending litigation. And while we deny these outrageous allegations, we are not going to discuss an employment relationship in the media.”
In the filing, Perry detailed her own alleged experiences of “ageist and ableist harassment” during her time at the company; She claimed Hamilton Daly said she was “too long in the tooth” and sought to have her removed in order to find “more young talent.”
Perry – whose casting credits include Cocoon, Midnight Express, and Ordinary People – said she was “wrongfully terminated” in April 2024 after nine years with the company. She detailed a virtual meeting with Hamilton Daly and Vice President of Human Resources Paul Hodgkinson, in which she was told to accept a lower role with a more than 50 percent pay cut because her position was being eliminated.
“Mr. Hodgkinson then told Ms. Perry that if she did not sign the agreement, she would be fired as of 4:00 pm on April 12, 2024,” the filing reads. “When Ms. Perry literally begged the company to give her more time to think about the tornado of decisions being thrown at her, specifically so that she could have an opportunity to speak with a lawyer about her job being taken away, she was fired.”
After she was fired, Perry alleged the company hired a younger man to do her job. According to the complaint, Perry also suffers from multiple sclerosis and is legally blind in one eye, claiming Hallmark failed to accommodate her disability.
Perry is seeking a trial by jury, as well as economic damages for loss of past and future earnings.
Both Chabert and Robinson-Peete have starred in multiple Hallmark projects over the years, with Chabert currently serving as executive producer for the network’s new reality series, Celebrations With Lacey Chabert, and the 2024 film, The Christmas Quest.
The Independent has contacted Hallmark for comment.
