Nancy Grace hasn’t even signed off from her HLN legal chat show yet and she’s already gone and lined up her next gig:
Movies.
Hallmark Movies & Mysteries — the cable TV home of such admit-it-you've-watched-'em original movie franchises as "Garage Sale Mystery" and "Murder She Baked" — said Wednesday it had begun production on "Hailey Dean Mystery: Murder, With Love." The movie is based on a series of novels by Grace, the former firecracker Atlanta prosecutor-turned-TV-talker, about a former firecracker Atlanta prosecutor-turned-therapist who keeps getting mixed up in solving murders.
The movie premieres on HMM on Oct. 23, one week after Book No. 3 in the Dean series, "Murder in the Courthouse," which takes place in Savannah, is due out. That's also the same month when Grace will step away for good from the show she's hosted for 12 years on Atlanta-based HLN.
“For years, Hallmark has been a destination channel for my family,” Grace said in a statement about her new TV movie home. “There’s something about Hailey…wherever she goes, people drop like flies!”
MORE: HLN's Nancy Grace to cover Georgia's Hot Car Death trial almost nonstop
Yes, there is something about Hailey … In 2009, when the first Dean book came out, Grace, in typically forceful fashion, insisted to the AJC that any similarities between the two of them were mostly coincidental.
“Hailey is just loosely based on me, ” Grace said in an interview about “The Eleventh Victim,” which began with the murder of a hooker near a MARTA station and featured a character who spent a lot of time in a high-end Atlanta strip club called the Pink Fuzzy.
“Hailey wants to completely remove herself from law and crime and criminal justice,” Grace continued. “What could she do, become a defense attorney? I couldn’t let her do that!”
Nor is Grace, who’s an executive producer on the film, “letting herself” play Hailey. Instead, the role goes to Kellie Martin, who played Lucy Knight on “ER” and later starred in a different movie franchise on HMM, “Mystery Woman.”
Not to worry, though. HMM says “Hailey Dean Mystery: Murder, With Love” will feature “a special on-screen appearance” by Grace.
We dare anyone to try leaving her on the cutting room floor!
