In gay mythology, no man has been at once such an icon and such a mystery. With his dutchboy haircut, tight polyester bellbottoms and visible horse-dick, Peter Berlin was almost a Tom of Finland drawing come to life. He used sex appeal, simple beauty and an aloofness that made him more creature of mythology than sex object.
Born Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene in Poland and raised in Berlin, his namesake capitalized not only on where he was raised, but on (the city) Berlin’s mystique, perhaps even ahead of its time. Relocating to San Francisco in the early 1970s, he became the exotic German to a curious, hungry American gay audience. His previous career as photographer in his home country perhaps prepared him for his carefully curated image as libidinous spectre in the then-burgeoning gay playground of San Francisco’s Castro district. Sensing the zeitgeist, he collaborated with friend Richard Abel (under the pseudonym Ignatio Rutkowski) for his first feature hardcore film NIGHTS IN BLACK LEATHER in 1973. It was followed up with THAT BOY, written, directed and produced by Berlin himself in 1974. He also directed and starred in several shorts during the same period, a selection of which are screened at this year’s Pornfilmfestival Berlin.
It was perhaps because of Berlin’s own unique sense of style and beauty that he (consciously) faded from the public eye after that. Gay culture at the time played with a standard set partly by Berlin himself and as he got older and didn’t fit that particular standard, he stepped out of the spotlight. He wasn’t heard of much after that, even though he remained in San Francisco. Interest in the statuesque blonde made a resurgence when director Jim Tushinski, with Berlin’s involvement, released THAT MAN: PETER BERLIN in 2005, revealing much to both those who loved Berlin during his 1970s heyday but knew little about him and to a new generation that knew nothing of the man in the photographs of older gay rags. Tushinski returned again to Peter Berlin just this year for THE PETER BERLIN CHRONICLES ‑ FOURSOME, a purely visual journey into not just the world of Berlin, but how Berlin himself sees the world. The Pornfilmfestival Berlin is proud to present a look back on a figure that not only revolutionized the gay world, but erotic imagery at large.
