How does a narcissist react to praise from other people? Peter Berlin says of being inducted into the GAYVN Hall of Fame, "I never even knew this award existed. I wonder who chooses one for it? I know nothing of these things. I have never been a part of any group or community."
The gay community took Peter to its heart in the 1970s when he exhibited his stunning image in two movies, Nights in Black Leather and That Boy, and again last year when those movies were reissued with astonishing success.
A new film by Jim Tushinski, That Man: Peter Berlin, won the GAYVN Best Documentary Award. "I have done nothing for decades," Peter exclaims. "I turned down movie and modeling offers from everywhere after my movies hit, because I found that people were obsessed with my creation, Peter Berlin, rather than with me, Baron Armin Hagen von Hoyningen-Huene, the German-born artist who created Peter. I was always as much of a narcissist as an exhibitionist. I didn't want only to be looked at, I wanted to look at someone who looked like Peter Berlin."
Peter had been slowly brought into existence when Armin, who recalls falling in love with his own image in the mirror at puberty, learned sewing, fashion design, and photography to improve that adored image. "Everyone knew me as a fashion photographer in Europe," he says, "but it took America, and specifically San Francisco's Polk Street, a gay ghetto, for me, or, that is, for Peter, to flower as an icon. I was always so shy. Even when I dared dress like Peter, I would close up like a flower if a woman or a straight-looking man came down the street. What a joy it must be to be straight. The whole world is your heterosexual ghetto! A straight man or woman can cruise anywhere! The only thing I didn't like when I strutted down Polk Street was when I would hear a passerby say, ‘There she goes again,' you know, the way some gay men do? I disliked the idea that homosexuals were women trapped in men's bodies. I never felt trapped in mine. I created a man who was sensuous without being effeminate, masculine without being butch. I guess the world was waiting for that breakthrough. Certainly the movies sold."
The success of the films was not echoed in personal happiness. "The only way in which I feel a failure is that every man in the world didn't want to look like Peter Berlin. They just wanted to look at him. I feel I had no real influence."
Encouraged to expound, he reveals surprising sides of himself. "Despite people saying that this is an age of sexual freedom, there is still a ridiculous foundation of sexual repression and limitation. The world is ruled by ugly people. Look at your congress. The natural thing is for men to express their sexuality, to enjoy it. Those fat men in suits and short hair who rule the world, no wonder they fight wars. Such schizophrenia! It is true that women have gained some dignity, but if you look at any situation comedy, you see that it is always all right to ridicule men, for anyone, male or female, young or old, to put men down. Men still have no self-respect, no self-love. If you do not respect or love yourself, you cannot respect or love anyone else. Therefore, war. Rather than showing a dick, they take up a gun. I have so much I would like to say. Perhaps this interview will convince someone out there that I am not just a stupid blond.
"Most of the things I do or could do seem so trivial when I realize that there are wars out there, genocides, just like Hitler's, genocide in Africa and elsewhere. But I envision a trilogy about my life. First, the world I came from, World War II and Europe. Second, my own life. And third, what I see as possible for the future. It would cost $50 million just to start, but it would be like nothing the world has seen. Because it would contain real sex, not the awful false stuff Hollywood sells, not even pornography as we know it so far, but a total exploration of the role of sex." He sighs. "In the meantime, what I do do is make movies of me and my companion, Reggie, the ‘black Peter Berlin.' It's messy, setting up the camera with grease on my hands." A laugh. "Since I no longer look like Peter, maybe I should spread some of that grease on the lens! But, you know, with the Internet and DVDs, beautiful Peter will live forever, and I suppose that's what the Hall of Fame means. I thank them."
Peter Berlin's films, That Boy and Nights in Black Leather, as well as Jim Tushniski's documentary, That Man: Peter Berlin, may be purchased at http://www.thatmanpeterberlin.com/dvd.html. Peter's photography and artwork are available at http://www.peter-berlin.com/ .
Photo by Peter Berlin
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