‘My Salute to Golden Era Thespians’: A Poem by Mark Stellinga

My Salute to Golden Era Thespians
of the ’50s and ’60s

To Tracy and Mason and Gable; to Bogie and Lauren Bacall;
Robinson, Stewart and Burton; Douglas, McQueen and Duvall;

To Lancaster, Cotten and Cooper; to Bellamy, Fonda and Quinn;
Richardson, Newman and Redford; the Hepburns and Taylor, Loren;

To Widmark and Curtis and Cagney; Hopkins and Bogart and Lawford;
Garland and Garbo and Bergman; Eastwood and Brando and Crawford;

To Mitchum, Montgomery and Coburn; Olivier, Heston and Wayne;
Guinness and Hackman and Holden; Ustinov, Laughton and Caine;

To Lemon and Kelly and Heflin; to Mansfield and Russel, MacLaine;
Marilyn, Collins and Hayward; Novak and Reynolds and Crain;

Plus dozens and dozens of other fine actors; I humbly offer my “Thanks.”
For all o’ the films from the ’50s an’ ’60s, you’ve rightfully placed in the ranks

Of Best-of-the-Best for this couple of decades—when acting’ was still in its prime,
‘Cause STARS of this era are—in my opinion—the absolute best of all time.

Mark Stellinga is a poet and antiques dealer residing in Iowa. He has often won the annual adult-division poetry contests sponsored by the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, has had many pieces posted in several magazines and sites over the past 60 years, including Poem-Hunter.com, PoetrySoup.com, and Able Muse.com—where he won the 1st place prize for both “best poem” of the year and “best book of verse.”