CASPER — A 1940 Natrona County High School graduate appeared on the cover of several magazines, released a hit record in the 1950s, was a beauty sought by advertisers and filmmakers, and starred in the lead role of a Western movie.
Her famous line that became a hit record was, “I like the wi-i-ide open spaces,” and for a few years Laurie Anders, born LoRayne Day in Casper, shined bright in New York and Hollywood.
“She had a doll made, she had a couple of TV Guide (covers) she was on,” said Rick Young, director of the Fort Caspar Museum. “She was popular.”
The museum recently opened an exhibit on the city’s native star that features her outfits, a doll made in her likeness, photos, and other items donated to the museum by relatives.
LoRayne Day was born Jan. 16, 1922, in Casper to Lyle and Mae Day. Museum Curator Michelle Bahe said her father and mother owned barbershops and beauty salons in town.
During her days at Natrona County High School there is no mention of her being involved with the school’s thespian or forensic clubs. Her senior photo shows an 18-year-old with short curly dark hair, and a smiling full face direct at the camera with distinctive high cheekbones and chin.
She looked nothing like the “voluptuous blonde” she would become posing in profile to reveal her figure Marilyn Monroe-like in heels, skin-clinging dance outfit with sheer stockings in a publicity photo.
Young Dancer
As a 13-year-old in Casper, an article in the society pages of the Casper Herald-Tribune on June 6, 1935, mentioned that Day performed a “double dance” number with another girl at the Woman’s Departmental Club. On Oct. 6, 1935, Day portrayed Hollywood star Ruby Keeler in a variety show at the high school auditorium called “Hollywood First Nighters.”
After graduation, Day attended an academy in Nebraska and on Aug. 15, 1940, the Casper Tribune Herald newspaper announced her marriage to Chuck McCoy. That marriage announcement described her as a “talented entertainer (who) has many times danced before Casper audiences.”
Her marriage to McCoy dissolved within the year and she married Roy Magar in her grandmother’s Casper home on December 1941, according to the Dec. 14 edition of the Casper Tribune-Herald. That marriage would end in divorce in 1948.
“He was in the Army during the war, so I don’t know how much of that time they spent together,” Bahe said.
In a TV guide insert article with Anders during the height to her notoriety published in the Birmingham News in Birmingham, Alabama on June 7, 1953, Anders refers to a French adagio dancer who became her third husband after she met him in New York during her career there. They were divorced by 1974.
In the same article, the reporter shared that Anders worked as a stenographer and secretary for the head of the steam fitters and plumbers’ union in Casper for a time and sang in country bands.
Laurie Anders was featured on the cover of TV guides as part of her role with the “Ken Murray Show” in the early 1950s. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Promotional photo of Laurie Anders in her movie, “The Marshal’s Daughter” are on display at the Fort Caspar Museum. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A publicity photo of Laurie Anders in her role of “The Marshal’s Daughter” movie is on display at the Fort Caspar Museum. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Cigarette Girl
She moved to California in 1948 and found a job as a “cigarette girl” at Ciro’s nightclub where the Hollywood stars hung out. There she was discovered by Ken Murray, a comedian and in the 1940s the producer of the “Blackouts” stage variety show in Los Angeles, New York, and later Las Vegas.
Her performing names would be known as Lorayne Anderson and then Laurie Anders. There was another actress from Utah who had the name Laraine Day.
An item in the entertainment column of the Casper Herald-Tribune on Oct. 2, 1949 stated that “this week’s Life (magazine) pictures a former Casper girl Lorayne Anderson (formerly Lorayne Day) daughter of Mrs. Mae Day as she appears at Ken Murray’s Blackouts.
“The Blackouts, which have kept tourists coming and going in Hollywood for seven years, have recently moved to New York,” the paper reported. “Lorayne was featured not too long ago in a magazines known as ‘Night and Day’ and appeared about two weeks ago in the Saturday Evening Post. This time, she really hit the big time.”
She visited Casper in October of that year with her mother and a front-page story said she had been starring in a run of the show in New York, but it had closed.
“The actress reports that she loves New York and after a visit here with her mother plans to return to that city. She will be doing a specialty number at the Latin Quarter club,” the Casper Tribune-Herald reported on Oct. 25, 1949.
From 1950 to 1952 she was part of Murray’s “The Ken Murray Show” a weekly comedy and music show. She appeared in nine episodes wearing her cowgirl outfit at certain intervals and deliver a single line in her signature drawl about liking the “wide open spaces.”
That line in 1951 became a hit record as part of a duet with Arthur Godfrey, selling 500,000 copies.
Phrase Makes Career
A TV columnist in the New York Daily News praised Anders for her ability to parlay the phrase into a career.
“Here’s a girl whose recipe for success is made up of three ingredients — a western drawl, a deadpan expression and a baby stare,” Kay Gardella wrote in the column on July 16, 1952. “Even Arthur Godfrey was impressed by her unique delivery of her ‘I like the wide-open spaces’ routine. She made a recording of this phrase set to music and Godfrey, known for giving young people a boost turned the royalties over to her.
“Besides this she is the living model for the Laurie Anders doll and is currently making films for video which Ken Murray is producing in which she is cast as a lady sheriff. The moral of this short yarn is — no matter what you do or how little you do, strive to be different and the chances are you’ll catch on.”
The doll referred to by the TV columnist can be found at the Fort Caspar Museum and depicts her in her chaps and top with the tag line “I like the wide-open spaces on the back band of the chaps. It was sold at J. C. Penney stores across the nation in 1951.
However, Anders’ big movie debut that Murray produced did not fare well at the box office. “The Marshal’s Daughter” which included Hoot Gibson, Preston Foster and Johnny Mack Brown, had her playing the daughter of Gibson who left being a lawman after his wife was killed and started a traveling medicine show. The show allowed Anders to reveal her talents.
She was a singer, dancer, trick roper, ventriloquist, martial-arts expert and dead-pan comedienne according to the website IMDb.
Left, a senior photo of LoRayne Day in the 1940 Natrona County High School yearbook. Right, A Hollywood promotional photo of Laurie Anders. 
Left, a doll depicting Laurie Anders was sold at J. C. Penney stores across the country in 1951. The Fort Caspar Museum has one on display. Right, the outfit worn by Laurie Anders on the “Ken Murray Show” is on display at the Fort Caspar Museum. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Left, LoRayne Day was discovered while working at a cigarette girl at a Los Angeles night club and became part of Ken Murray’s popular “Blackouts” stage show. A record cover from show is at the Fort Caspar Museum. Right, a movie poster for the “The Marshal’s Daughter” which featured a Casper native, known on the screen as Laurie Anders. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
LoRayne Day, aka Laurie Anders, became Lorayne Raddatz for the last 18 years of her life. She died in 1992 of cancer and is buried beside her fourth husband. (Findagrage.com)
‘Embarrassing Western’
The plot involved her disguising herself as a masked man named “El Coyote” to take on and defeat the bad guys.
It had a budget of $165,000 and was distributed by United Artists. Billed as a “serious western,” one writer published in the Newark Star-Ledger before the movie came out said that after the movie a TV series starring Anders was planned.
When the movie came out in June 1953 it was not well received. A reviewer in the Los Angeles Mirror on June 27, 1953, called it an “embarrassing western.”
The movie is available on YouTube and some of the remarks of those who watch it now give Anders high marks for talent but lamented the editing.
One reviewer wrote that the loss was that it became Anders only movie.
“One of the great losses in Hollywood was Laurie Anders' making only this one movie. She was beyond adorable,” the reviewer on the IMDb website wrote. “She was very capable and with a better director, or at least better directing she could have shown herself a good actress.”
Following the movie, her last performing role came as part of a Ken Murray series on CBS called “Time to Smile” that a TV columnist Ben Gross characterized as a “woeful disappointment.”
“Ken worked hard as the emcee,” he wrote in the Feb. 16, 1953, New York Daily News. “Marie Wilson, Johnny Johnston, Laurie Anders and others did their best to pump life into the proceedings. But to no avail. The material wasn’t there.”
Anders disappeared from TV or movies except for an appearance on “This Is Your Life” for Murray in 1960. A second record featuring Anders singing “Sure Fire Kisses” and “T- For Texas” was released in 1954 but was not a hit. She toured with Cincinnati’s WLW Midwestern Hayride as a featured performer during the mid-1950s.
Anders married publicist Leslie Raddatz in 1974 and she became Lorayne Raddatz. They remained together living in Tarzana, California until her death due to cancer on Oct. 6, 1992.
While a Casper Tribune-Herald article with her in 1955 refers to her as growing up near the Goose Egg Ranch west of Casper, there is no evidence of that in the early articles of her life.
Young said his understanding is that she grew up in town.
Among the materials in the museum are the famous chaps she wore and midriff top that were part of several publicity photos and her standard costume for Murray’s TV show.
“Those chaps have a 24-inch waist on them,” Bahe said. “She was a tiny person.”
Plans call for the display to remain at the Fort Caspar Museum through next February, Young said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
