In her most notable screen role, Fitzgerald played the part of singer Maggie Jackson in Jack Webb's 1955 jazz film "Pete Kelly's Blues". The film costarred Janet Leigh and singer Peggy Lee. Even though she had already worked in the movies (she had sung briefly in the 1942 Abbott and Costello film "Ride 'Em Cowboy"), she was "delighted" when Norman Granz negotiated the role for her, and, "at the time ... considered her role in the Warner Brothers movie the biggest thing ever to have happened to her." Amid "The New York Times" pan of the film when it opened in August 1955, the reviewer wrote, "About five minutes (out of ninety-five) suggest the picture this might have been. Take the ingenious prologue ... take the fleeting scenes when the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald, allotted a few spoken lines, fills the screen and sound track with her strong mobile features and voice."