Peter Berlin (Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene) is a German-American photographer, artist, filmmaker, clothing designer/sewer, and model best known by his stage name Peter Berlin. In the early to mid-1970s his two films, Nights in Black Leather (1973) and That Boy (1974) (credited in the latter as Peter Burian) helped bring gay male erotic films artistic legitimacy. He was born December 28, 1942, in German-occupied Łódź, Poland, but he grew up in an aristocratic family in Berlin, Germany. He is the second of three children. The extended family included the Russian American 1920s and 1930s fashion photographer George Hoyningen-Huene.
“With his trademark Dutchboy haircut, Tom of Finland physique, and oh-so-tight trousers, Peter Berlin was the poster boy for the hedonistic and sexually liberated 1970s. Jim Tushinski’s fascinating, sexy, and ultimately touching documentary, That Man: Peter Berlin, traces Berlin’s story over the past 40 years, from his birth in wartime Germany to his current life in San Francisco, and shows the human being behind the icon.
Photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol, drawn by Tom of Finland, and lusted after by countless fans, Peter Berlin was more than just a piece of eye candy. A talented artist, photographer, and filmmaker, he starred in two underground gay erotic classics from the early 1970s, Nights in Black Leather and That Boy, which he also directed. But he was his own biggest creation, a carefully constructed, unattainable icon awash in eroticism.
His many fans and friends, such as director John Waters, author Armistead Maupin, adult film legend Jack Wrangler, filmmaker Wakefield Poole, photographers Rick Castro and Dan Nicoletta, and artist Robert W. Richards, offer their reflections on Berlin and the time period.” www.thatmanpeterberlin.com
