Hallmark fears leading ladies like Lacey Chabert are ‘aging out’

Lisa Hamilton-Daly, Hallmark’s executive vice president of programming, told her employees she didn’t want to cast “old people,” saying they didn’t fit her image for the channel, a new age discrimination lawsuit has been filed against the studio.

In the suitHamilton Daly was quoted as singling out Holly Robinson Peete and Lacey Chabert, aged 60 and 42 respectively, as examples of “old talent” that needed to be “replaced”. Both actors have starred in Hallmark Channel Christmas movies and shows.

“Lacey is getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older,” Hamilton-Daly said.

“Nobody wants her because she’s too expensive and she’s getting old,” she said of Robinson Peete. The suit claims she can’t play lead roles anymore.

Penny Perry, the 79-year-old acting director, filed the lawsuit on October 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court. She claims she was unceremoniously fired in April after nine years at the company.

According to the complaint, Hamilton repeatedly told Daly-Perry that she was “too long in the tooth,” and sought to remove her as part of the goal of finding “new talent.”

“We need to bring in someone who knows more young talent,” the executive said, according to the lawsuit. “Our leading ladies are getting older.”

Hallmark responded in a statement: “Lacy and Holly have a home at Hallmark. We do not generally comment on pending litigation. While we deny these outrageous allegations, we will not discuss their business relationship in the media.”

Perry is an industry veteran whose acting credits include “Cocoon,” “Young Guns” and “The NeverEnding Story.” According to her complaint, she suffers from multiple sclerosis and is legally blind in one eye. She claims Hallmark failed to accommodate her disability.

Perry says she received strong annual performance evaluations, including one just two months before she was fired.

Hamilton Daly was named executive vice president of programming at Hallmark in September 2021, after previously working at Netflx and A+E Networks. The suit alleges that Hamilton-Daly quickly decided that Perry was “too old to serve in her position, and maneuvered to have her fired from the company.”

She claims her office was moved to a different floor, she was excluded from meetings, and on one project, her casting duties were assigned to an outside consultant. After she was fired, Perry alleged that the company hired a younger man to do her job.

SAG-AFTRA has long fought against age discrimination in casting, going so far as to persuade California lawmakers to ban IMDb from publishing actors’ ages. This law was rejected in court as unconstitutional, but the union later convinced IMDb to allow actors to remove their ages from their profiles.