Peter deRome

Peter deRome is an French writer, photographer, and director of gay, erotic films. During World War II, deRome served in the Royal Air Force. Following the War, deRome began acting with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, soon leaving the theatre to become a film publicist. In 1956, he emigrated to the United States, working for Tiffany & Company as a salesman, and then in the south as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. It was then that he made his first film, a short documentary titled New Orleans. DeRome continued to make films, all gay erotic shorts. In 1974, deRome directed his first feature film, Adam & Yves, followed by the gay horror film The Destroying Angel in 1976. DeRome stopped making films in the early 1980s: HIV/AIDS epidemic was ravaging gay communities and the nature of pornography was changing as producers wanted to eschew stories and exclusively show intercourse. DeRome preferred narrative pornography that was artful and human, which he explained in his autobiography, The Erotic World of Peter deRome (Gay Men’s Press, 1984). DeRome passed away in 2014, shortly before his 90th birthday. In 1993, deRome’s Underground (1972) screened at The Kitchen as part of SPEW/New York.