Hallmark feared that leading actresses like Lacey Chabert would “age.”

Lisa Hamilton Daly, Hallmark's executive vice president of programming, told her staff that she didn't want to cast “old people” because they didn't fit her image for the network, prompting an age discrimination lawsuit against the studio.

The lawsuit quotes Hamilton Daly as highlighting Holly Robinson Peete and Lacey Chabert, ages 60 and 42, respectively, as examples of “legacy talent” who needed to be “replaced.” Both actors have starred in Christmas movies and Hallmark Channel shows.

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

Of Robinson Peete, she said, “Nobody wants her because she’s too expensive and she’s getting too old. She can no longer play leading roles,” the lawsuit says.

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

According to the complaint, Hamilton Daly repeatedly told Perry that she was “too long in the tooth” and tried to have her removed to find “new talent.”

“We need to hire someone who knows more young talent,” the managing director said, according to the lawsuit. “Our leading actresses are getting older.”

Hallmark responded in a statement: “Lacey and Holly have a home at Hallmark. We generally do not comment on pending legal disputes. And although we deny these outrageous allegations, we will not discuss an employment relationship in the media.”

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

Perry says she has received good performance reviews every year, including one just two months before she was fired.

Hamilton Daly was hired as Executive VP of Programming at Hallmark in September 2021 after previously working at Netflx and A+E Networks. The lawsuit alleges that Hamilton Daly quickly decided that Perry was “too old to work in her position and attempted to force her out of 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 claimed the company hired a younger man to do her job.

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