EMMY� AWARD WINNER RICHARD THOMAS, NANCY MCKEON AND TEEN ACTRESS HALLEE HIRSH STAR IN �WILD HEARTS,� A TWO-HOUR HALLMARK CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE PREMIERING JULY 8

Thomas and Hirsh Star as a Former LA Cop and His Rebellious Daughter Who Start New Lives as Ranchers in Montana; Veteran Actor Geoffrey Lewis (�Any Which Way But Loose�) Co-Stars

With a wolf on the prowl and a ruthless development company trying to buy up all the land, a former Los Angeles policeman and his teenage daughter find ranch life is more challenging than they had expected in the Hallmark Channel Original movie �Wild Hearts,� premiering Saturday, July 8 (9/8c). Richard Thomas (Emmy� Award winner for �The Waltons�) stars alongside Nancy McKeon (�The Division�), who plays the town�s veterinarian and teen star Hallee Hirsh (�Flight 29 Down,� �JAG�).

Widower Bob Hart (Thomas) is baffled to discover he has inherited the family ranch and mustang herd and, as his father�s designated deputy, he also is now the interim sheriff of the small town of Hope, Montana. He hadn�t spoken to his father since leaving his childhood home to join the LA police force. Going back will be a tough readjustment, but Bob hopes it will prove a good change for his nose-pierced, skateboarding daughter Madison (Hirsh), whom he fears may be growing up a little too wild on the streets without a mother�s supervision. Madison is devastated to be leaving her friends and the city to move to the middle of nowhere.

Bob discovers that life in Hope is far less tranquil than he had expected. His ranch and mustang herd are under threat from a wolf as well as from the strong arm tactics of the development company that seems ruthlessly intent on buying up the town and surrounding ranchland. Awed by the natural beauty of the countryside but dismayed by the lack of urban amenities, Madison struggles to adjust until she finds a friend in the town�s veterinarian, Emily (McKeon), a refugee herself from city life, who sees more to her than her nose ring and defiant teenage attitude.

Richard Thomas, recently seen in the Hallmark Channel Original movie �Annie�s Point� and on Broadway in The Naked Girl on the Appian Way, has been a TV favorite since his Emmy� Award-winning performance as John-Boy in the beloved hit series �The Waltons.� A television regular since playing Jo on the long-running series �The Facts of Life,� Nancy McKeon most recently starred in the series �The Division� and the miniseries �Category 6: Day of Destruction.� An actress since she was three, Hallee Hirsh is currently starring in the Discovery Kid�s series �Flight 29 Down� and played opposite such movie icons as Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.

Veteran character actor Geoffrey Lewis, whose many film and TV credits include six Clint Eastwood films, notably as Orville Boggs in both �Every Which Way But Loose� and �Any Which Way You Can,� plays Hank, the ranch hand and close family friend. Also featured in the cast are A. J. Trauth (Alan Twitty on �Even Stevens�) as Tim, a teenage cowboy-in-training with an interest in Madison, James Callahan (Walter Powell on �Charles in Charge�) as the town�s mayor and Joseph Culp (�Apollo 13�) as Bob�s longtime nemesis, now the land company�s local representative.

�Wild Hearts� is a Hallmark Entertainment presentation of an Alpine Medien production in association with Larry Levinson Productions. Steve Boyum directed from a script by Donald Martin & Mitchell Gabourie. Robert Halmi, Jr. and Larry Levinson are executive producers. Nick Lombardo and Amy Goldberg are co-executive producers and Albert T. Dickerson III and Jeff Kloss are producers.

Hallmark Channel is a 24-hour basic cable channel that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national audience of over 73 million subscribers. The program service is distributed through more than 5,300 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Crown Media also operates a second 24-hour linear channel, Hallmark Movie Channel. Through its subsidiary, Crown Media Distribution, LLC, Crown also distributes titles from its award-winning collection of movies, miniseries and films for exhibition in a variety of television media including broadcast, cable, Video-on-Demand and High Definition Television.

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