by Jacob VanGundy | Published
Hallmark, the company known for its cheap Christmas greeting cards and movies, is now, according to Variety, the subject of an age discrimination lawsuit. The former casting director sued the company, claiming she was fired for her age. In support of his case, he accused the company of a pattern of age discrimination against their actors.
Penny Perry, 79, a former Hallmark casting director filed the lawsuit after she was fired in April. Perry, who has worked at Hallmark for nine years, is an established casting director who has produced hundreds of syndicated projects Cocoa again The Neverending Story. He alleges that VP of Programming Lisa Hamilton Daly called him “too tall for the birds” and wanted a younger casting director to hire younger actors.
Pattern of Behavior
To establish Hallmark as a pattern of age discrimination in her case, Penny Perry shared other stories, all centered on Lisa Hamilton Daly. According to the casting director, she was told to stop casting “adults,” especially as female leads. Hamilton Daly is said to have spoken freely about changing the cast to include young women as part of his vision for the company.
According to Perry’s Hallmark lawsuit, Hamilton even named two actors he wanted to replace. One of those actors is 60-year-old Holly Robinson Peete, who Hamilton Daly called too old to play the lead role. One is Lacey Chabert who is 42 years old, and Hamilton Daly is reported to have explained the need to find someone to fill his place because he is old.
More at Court
While age discrimination is at the center of the Hallmark lawsuit, Perry also claims the company failed to accommodate her disability. The casting director suffers from multiple sclerosis and is legally blind in one eye. He blamed that lack of housing and a hostile work environment for older workers.
In the Hallmark Lawsuit filing, Perry claims Lisa Hamilton Daly tried to force him out of the company before firing him outright. Hamilton Daly joined the company in 2021 and shortly thereafter began pulling Perry out of meetings, moved his office to a new floor, and downgraded one of his shares to a consultant. Despite this mistreatment, Perry says his performance reviews remained strong in the months leading up to his firing.
Hallmark has strongly denied the allegations made in their lawsuit. In their public statement about the legal action they said “Lacy and Holly have a home at Hallmark.” Aside from their comments about the specific actors being named and disavowing the dress, the company declined to comment on the allegations of discrimination.
An Ongoing Problem in Hollywood
The Hallmark case focuses on the larger, more well-known problem of age discrimination in Hollywood. SAG-AFTRA has repeatedly tried to fight ageism, pushing for programs like allowing actors to remove their age from IMDb. Women are more vulnerable to age discrimination, with actresses such as Olivia Wilde and Maggie Gyllenhaal speaking publicly about the issue.
It will be interesting to see how Penny Perry’s Hallmark case plays out, as it runs into such a big problem for the industry. If the casting director is successful in court, it could lead companies to take notice of age discrimination against both actors and employees. If nothing else, the issue has exposed and painted at least one official as a blatant racist.
Source: Variety
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