In 1981, Eleanor Gaver entered the directing program at NYU and began working for the filmmakers Beth and Scott B. Beth B. was the first female director Gaver ever met and she became a role model. From her, Gaver learned how to fuck the system and make a movie for nothing. But Gaver was torn. She also wanted to make big Hollywood movies, so in 1987 she made a romantic comedy. Blake Edwards saw the film and offered to represent Gaver, so she moved to LA. But the only work for female directors in Hollywood back then was exploitation. She made Slipping into Darkness, and the bond company, not convinced a woman could direct the picture, sent a rep to the set who stood next to Gaver ready to take the film away if she didn’t make it through her shot list each day or didn’t follow the mandate of sex and violence every ten minutes. No way was she going to do that again. Gaver turned to writing scripts and got the green light on There’s No Fish Food in Heaven (later retitled Life in the Fast Lane by the distributor) starring Tea Leoni, Fairuza Balk, Noah Taylor and Patrick Dempsey. At the premiere, half the audience got up and ran when Balk accidentally stabs Taylor in the head and blood spouts everywhere. The filmmaker Alex Cox was sitting next to Gaver and said, “You will never get a better reaction than that.” But Hollywood didn’t agree. So Gaver returned to New York and reclaimed her voice making underground films, her way.