STAR THANKFUL FOR PENNY

They're both stars of Hallmark Channel Mystery Movie franchises. But when Joe Penny was starring in the hit series "Jake and the Fatman," Casey Sander was a struggling actor trying to catch a break.

"I was doing a couple of days on 'Jake and the Fatman,' Sander recalls. "Two weeks later, they wanted to bring me in for another episode - and I didn't have to go read for it. Joe had called casting and said, 'Any time we have a part that's like generic Officer No. 1, why not just make it Casey?' And I did about seven or eight of those as a result."

"I had just gotten married and I had a little family," says Sander. "The residuals from the reruns of that show kept me going. And that was because of Joe, just because he made a call and said, 'Throw this guy a bone.'"

Sander never got the chance to really thank Penny, because they never worked together since. "But now that we're in soundstages that are next to each other" - Penny playing Lea Thompson's top secret National Security Agency boss in "Jane Doe" and Sander portraying a local police chief annoyed by Kellie Martin's amateur sleuthing in "Mystery Woman" - "I'll get to seek him out and tell him the story, because I really, really appreciate what he did."

The latest installments of "Jane Doe" and "Mystery Woman" premiere Friday, February 18 and 25 respectively -- and exclusively on Hallmark Channel.

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