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Over the years, many legendary movies have been filmed, set or based in the great state of Wyoming. Here's a look back at ten of the greatest actors who have depicted the Cowboy State on the big screen.

1. Robert Redford - Redford has appeared in, at least, three movies set in Wyoming, including 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the 2005 drama An Unfinished Life. Redford also played the title character in Jeremiah Johnson and later served as a pallbearer when the infamous mountain man was reburied in Cody, Wyoming, in 1974.

2. Clint Eastwood - Wyoming was one of several locations where Eastwood filmed the classic 1976 western The Outlaw Josie Wales. In 1992, he won an Academy Award for his role as an aging outlaw in Unforgiven, which was set in the mythical town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming.

3. John Wayne - In the late 1930s, Wayne starred in two Wyoming-based westerns. In 1936, he played an undercover federal agent in The Lawless Nineties. Three years later, he played the lead role in Wyoming Outlaw, which was part of The Three Mesquiteers series.

4. Steve McQueen - In one of his final roles, McQueen portrayed Tom Horn, the bounty hunter, and gunslinger who was jailed and hung after killing a teenage boy. In 1973, McQueen and actress Ali MacGraw were married at Holliday Park in Cheyenne while he was researching the role.

5. Paul Newman - Along with Redford, Newman starred in the Academy Award-winning production of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which depicted Newman as the leader of the infamous 'Hole in the Wall' gang.

6. Christopher Walken - Following his Oscar-winning role in The Deer Hunter, Walken portrayed Nate Champion in the film Heaven's Gate, which was based on the Johnson County War in the 1890s. While researching the character, Walken actually got a few tips from the locals one evening during a visit to the Hitching Post in Cheyenne. 

7. James Stewart - In 1970, Stewart led an all-star cast in The Cheyenne Social Club. The comedy depicted him as a Texas rancher who inherits an upscale brothel from his deceased brother in Wyoming and attempts to turn it into a respectable business.

8. Henry Fonda - One of Stewart's co-stars in The Cheyenne Social Club, Fonda also appeared in the 1963 film Spencer's Mountain. The drama, which recounted the struggle of settlers in the Teton Mountains, later inspired the long-running television series The Waltons.

9. Morgan Freeman - After co-starring with Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, Freeman played another Wyoming-based role in An Unfinished Life. In the 2005 film, he and Robert Redford portrayed ranchers who teach a young woman (Jennifer Lopez) how to be a real cowgirl.

10. Allen Ladd - No list of great Wyoming movies is complete without mentioning Ladd's role in Shane. Considered to be one of the greatest westerns ever, Ladd played a gunfighter who settles in Wyoming after the Civil War and was forced to defend local homesteaders from wealthy cattle barons.

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Ten Legendary Actors Who Made Movies in Wyoming

 

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