Skeeter's growing maturity is also marked by his uncle's willingness to allow him to drink coffee, which is regarded as an adult beverage. As the novel opens, Skeeter is not permitted to drink coffee. After he tames Lady, his uncle allows him heavily creamed coffee, and after he allows Grover to take Lady away, Jesse tells Evans that Skeeter (whom he now refers to by his given name, Claude) drinks his coffee black. James Street, a native of Mississippi, was politically liberal, and his fiction often involved an attempt to reconcile his heritage with his liberal views on race. Good-Bye, My Lady includes an African-American family, the Watsons, who own a farm across the river from Jesse and Skeeter. The Watsons' eldest son, Gates, is a college graduate. Towards the end of the novel Skeeter learns that Gates Watson knew all along where Lady came from, and also about the reward for her return, but remained silent out of friendship for Skeeter. Inspiration and 1942 sequel English Basenji breeder Veronica Tudor-Williams tells of a letter she received from Street in 1942 saying that he first got the idea of writing about a Basenji after seeing a photograph of Veronica Tudor-Williams with some Basenjis in an American magazine. He also wrote that the reader reaction from his first story was so strong that he wrote a sequel, "Please Come Home, My Lady", reuniting Skeeter with Lady. "Please Come Home, My Lady" appeared in the 11 April 1942 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. 1956 film After Street's death, Warner Bros. pictures began production of a film version of the novel, starring Brandon deWilde as Skeeter, Walter Brennan as Uncle Jesse, Phil Harris as Cash Evans, and Sidney Poitier as Gates Watson. The film was produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions, directed by William A. Wellman, and the screenplay was written by Albert Sidney Fleishman. Veronica Tudor-Williams provided the Basenji, named My Lady of the Congo, who played Lady in the film, and also provided four additional dogs to serve as "doubles" for My Lady. After filming ended, My Lady was adopted by deWilde, and the other dogs were adopted by various members of the film crew. The film version was released on 12 May 1956. It has also appeared under the titles Goodbye, My Lady and The Boy and the Laughing Dog. Good-Bye, My Lady was released by Warner Home Video