Face-on-a-Pie Lawsuit Is Filed

A family feud is threatening to take a slice out of Orange-based Marie Callender Pie Shops Inc.

Katy Callender has sued the pie maker and the Delaware company that distributes its products to supermarkets, contending they are using her photograph without permission.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that the companies began putting Katy Callender’s image on packaging for frozen pies and pie shells about March 1997. The complaint contends the distributor has taken in revenue of more than $6 million from products bearing the likeness.

Neither Katy Callender’s attorneys nor Marie Callender executives returned phone calls Monday. The suit does not specify Katy Callender’s relationship to others in the family.

Marie Callender began making pies in a Quonset hut in Long Beach and opened her first shop in Orange in 1962. She died in 1995.

As of late last year, the company had almost 10,000 employees and operated 161 Marie Callender restaurants.