"She's a rootin' tootin' straight shooting bundle of curves!"

Got that right pardner.

Laurie Anders, the screen name of voluptuous blonde Casper native Lorayne Day, starred in "The Marshal's Daughter" in 1953 and a copy of the movie poster with the "rootin' tootin'" tag line hangs above the outfit she wore as part of an exhibit at the Fort Caspar Museum.

"Hollywood in Wyoming" opened last month and is the result of the work of Valerie Innella's museum studies class at Casper College, said the museum's curator of education Erin Rose.

Other partners in the project include the Western History Archives, the Jackson Hole Historical Museum, Boyd and Dona Magers, and the American Heritage Center. A Casper College innovation grant paid for the exhibit, according to a news release from the museum.

In the few weeks since its opening, Rose has heard comments from visitors who didn't realize the connections between some movies made in Wyoming, she said. "It's great because it jogs your memory or experience."

Some memories, such as those about Anders, need serious jogging.

Anders, who died in California at 70 in 1992, became famous for her theme song "I Like the Wide Open Spaces," sung on "The Ken Murray Show" in the early 1950s.

Murray featured her as Laurie Dawson in the film dubbed by Time Magazine as "undoubtedly one of the worst westerns ever made," but it has been redeemed over time and now has the reputation of being a camp classic, according to the biography accompanying Day/Anders/Dawson at findagrave.com.

Anders' crooning cowgirl schtick faded by the 1960s, but she and other celluloid notables live on at the exhibit.

Besides her duds, the exhibit features the cowboy outfit and hat worn by Kenny Rogers in "Wild Horses," and hats worn by Alan Ladd in "Shane," Glenn Ford in "Jubal" and Tim McCoy in "Wyoming."

Wyoming, for better or for worse, will be known for the location of or the subject of the mythical West from "Wyoming Roundup" in 1904, shot on the plains north of Rock River, and more recently with "Flicka" in 2006, shot near Sheridan.

The state and fictional locations therein also have been topics of cinema, such as Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven."

But Eastwood worked in Wyoming in "Any Which Way You Can," as did Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky IV," John Wayne in "Hellfighters," Richard Dryfuss in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and Casper Van Dien in "Starship Troopers," Rose said.

"You think of classic Westerns, but we had 'Starship Troopers' and 'Close Encounters' near Devil's Tower," she said.

Wyoming still holds promise for filmmaking because of its sparse population, scenery and some towns that haven't changed over time, Rose said.

A lot of films have to go far away to find those, she said.

For example, "Cold Mountain," starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, is set during the Civil War in Appalachia. But it was filmed in Eastern Europe where no telephone poles or other modern developments interrupt the sweeping vistas, Rose said.

"But here in Wyoming, we still have those places," she said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@trib.com.