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A case could be made that Playboy founder/publisher Hugh Hefner has influenced the average American’s life over the past half-century as much as, if not more than, any other private citizen. This is, of course, largely because his magazine played a key role in ushering in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, but also because — as the Oscar-winning filmmaker Brigitte Berman discovered and conveys beautifully in her new documentary “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel” (Phase 4 Films, 7/30, trailer) — he has quietly and consistently stood up for First Amendment rights, civil rights, and, yes, even women’s rights over the more than half-century that he’s been in the public eye.

The doc, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, will be released on Friday at the Angelika Film Center in New York, the Nuart Theatre in Santa Monica, and the Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington, D.C. Along with never-before-seen footage from Hef’s personal scrapbooks and archives, it features a number of high-profile talking heads, each of whom — like most Americans — have strong feelings either in favor of or opposition to Hefner and everything he stands for. Thanks to the kind help of Ms. Berman (a fascinating woman who I’ll be profiling in another post later today), I was able to speak with Mr. Hefner himself earlier this month and can now bring you his own thoughts on the film and the story it tells/he lived.

Following is a complete transcript of our conversation, minus pleasantries…

When did you first meet Brigitte Berman?
Well, she did, as you know, an Academy Award winning documentary on Artie Shaw, the big band leader in the forties and an idol of mine—I was a fan of big band jazz. And then I learned that she had done a documentary that had not been released on Bix Beiderbecke; Bix Beiderbecke is an iconic jazz figure—clarinet player—from the 1920s, and I was a huge fan of his, so I contacted her because I was interested in getting a copy of the documentary. And that was the beginning of the friendship.

As far as I know, you hadn’t previously cooperated with other people who had wanted to make documentaries about your life, but you decided to place your trust in Brigitte. When you saw the finished product, what was your reaction?
Well, I was very pleased, as you know. There had been a couple of other documentaries on me, but they were about, you know, the lifestyle and such, which people were familiar with. What Brigitte wanted to do was the other half of my life, the part that people don’t know so much about, and that was an intriguing idea. And when she screened it, I was thrilled. I thought she did a very nice job.

The documentary features interviews with people who are great admirers of yours, and also with people who are great critics of yours. The gist of the criticisms in the film, just like the gist of the criticisms that feminists and others have made in the past, is that you—through your magazine and lifestyle—essentially “objectify” women. I want to give you an opportunity to present the other side of that argument…
Well, I think that, simply stated, women are objects of desire; if they weren’t, there would never be a second generation. It is the attraction between the two sexes that makes the world go ’round, that is the basis of civilization. The notion that somehow that objectifies women in a negative sense is just somebody’s political agenda. I think that what is worth noting within all of this is that the magazine has been around for more than half a century, and the women who have posed in the magazine overwhelmingly consider that one of the high points of their life. They obviously don’t feel as if they’ve been exploited or used in any kind of negative way. It is somebody else’s outside political perspective that is what this is really all about.

When you were growing up, who were your heroes, role models, and inspirations?
Oh, people that you probably wouldn’t imagine: Freud, Darwin, Einstein—people that attempted to explain the mysteries of the universe.

At what point did the idea of running a magazine like Playboy first occur to you as a viable career option? Was there a turning point when you realized that it was something that might actually work in the long-term?
Well, I had never worked in an editorial capacity for a magazine before, but I had been in “rehearsal” for what I wound up doing most of my life. In other words, I drew cartoons; created comic strips; wrote stories; published a neighborhood newspaper when I was nine-years-old; created a grade school newspaper called The Pepper when I was in seventh grade. So, in a certain sense, I had been in “rehearsal” all my life. I worked for one year for Esquire magazine in their promotion department, and when they were moving to New York there was a notorious—true—story about the fact that I had not been given a raise, and asked for a five-dollar raise, and didn’t get it, so I quit and stayed behind. I worked for the Publisher’s Development Corporation for a short time—they published Modern Man and Art Photography—and then for a children’s magazine. And I just felt as if my life wasn’t going anywhere, and I actually tried to raise some money with a friend for a Chicago magazine, and failed at doing that. And then there was a moment in December of 1952 when I had been to an alumni gathering at my high school, and we put on a show—my high school buddy and I wrote and performed in it—and it reminded me of the dreams I used to have when I was in high school. And I just felt as if my life wasn’t going anywhere, and I decided to put everything on the line and try this magazine. I actually hocked my furniture— Borrowed money from a local bank company, put my furniture up as collateral; raised six hundred dollars of my own money; formed a corporation; got people to invest in it; got a total of eight thousand dollars; found a printing company that had open printing time; and managed to put out one issue. And that was the beginning of it all.

Amazing. And when you think about how many magazines have come and gone since Playboy first hit newsstands, it’s even more remarkable. In what ways do you believe that Playboy has impacted the lives of average Americans since it first began its run?
Well, I think that Playboy was one of the first—and the major player—in the creation of what became the sexual revolution. Playboy was first published at the end of 1953. The 1950s was a very conservative—socially, sexually, and politically very conservative—decade, and I made a case, in the magazine, for another way of living your life, and made a case for what became the sexual revolution. And I actually had those views even before I started the magazine. In a post-graduate course at Northwestern, I did a paper called “Sex Behavior and the U.S. Law,” and I compared the statistics of the first Kinsey Report on male sex behavior and the laws of the then-forty-eight states, and made the case that if laws were effectively applied most adult men would be serving some prison time. And so those thoughts were there early on. And once the magazine had been launched—and it was essentially perceived as a lifestyle magazine—once the magazine was successful, then I introduced the other half of what I was all about, and I introduced the Playboy interview, and the non-fiction, and started writing the Playboy philosophy, and made the strong case for the sexual revolution, which then came to pass in the middle of the sixties.

People who have opposed your magazine—feminists, political conservatives, the religious right, and others—have referred to it as “pornography,” but you have said, “I never felt that the magazine was ever pornography.” Can you explain the distinction?
Well, I think the term “pornography” is a negative label for what would otherwise be called “erotica.” I think what we’re talking about there is explicit sexual imagery. Well, Playboy doesn’t publish explicit sexual imagery; we publish nude and semi-nude pin-ups. If Playboy was pornography, then there would be no such thing as erotica—in other words, Playboy is about as classy erotic imagery as one can find anywhere.

How has Playboy managed to remain so strong in a world in which there is now a seemingly infinite number of nude women—presented both in classy and in less classy ways—who can be accessed for free on the Internet which just a few clicks of the computer mouse?
Well, obviously, the arrival of X-rated material and erotic material of all kinds on the Internet and elsewhere has formed a kind of competition. But the bottom line, quite frankly, is that the major appeal of Playboy goes beyond that; it is because we publish a very good men’s magazine, a lifestyle magazine. The reason it’s still popular is because it is a very good men’s magazine.

The Playboy Mansion is now one of the most famous homes in America—it’s got to be right up there with Hearst Castle, Monticello, and even the White House. Can you talk about how you came to own it, and who lives, works, and parties there? Everybody knows that it exists, but not many people know what goes on there…
Well, I think the Mansion and my life have become iconic, in part and parcel, because the brand has become iconic—it’s difficult to separate the two; I think the one fuels the other. It is not a coincidence that the revitalization and popularity of the brand correlates to when I came back out of my marriage in 1988. I think that a fascination with that lifestyle has to do with the popularity of the brand, the popularity of the magazine. The reality is that even though magazines are having difficult times—and Playboy magazine shares those problems—in competition with the Internet, the reality is that the brand itself, on a global level, is more popular today than ever before.

A related question about the iconic nature of it all: how did you arrive at the robe, pajamas, and pipe look with which you are now so closely associated?
Well, that just, sort of, happened. In other words, I didn’t start wearing pajamas because I thought it would be a nice statement or publicity statement; I just wore pajamas around the house because it was comfortable.

So is that, sort of, your daily uniform? Rather than getting dressed up, is that how you usually go about your day?
I’m wearing my black pajamas right now as we speak.

What does an average day for you entail, from when you wake up until when you go to bed? Many people are fascinated with your life, but I think they each have their own ideas of what it must involve on a daily basis…
Well, the day begins in the later morning. I start with editorial and office concerns. I talk to my art director, my editors; make changes in the magazine—in layouts, etcetera; then I tend to do interviews of this kind, and other kinds of, you know, work on the magazine; and the evening. The evenings are fairly organized routines: tonight I will be playing gin rummy with my brother and some male friends, and then later in the evening spending my time with my girlfriend, Crystal Harris; Mondays are usually a gathering of male friends—we have something to eat together and watch an old film; Tuesday nights I play games with the girls—the Playmates; Wednesday is card night with the guys; Thursday night is usually just quiet night with Crystal—sometimes we’ll go out to dinner or to a club; Friday is “Casablanca Night”—Friday and Saturday night, friends come in and we run an old classic film; Sunday is fun in the sun, hanging out by the pool with the Playmates, and then in the evening a buffet and a new movie; and then the week begins again.

What are the greatest misconceptions that people have about you? And what do you most wish that people knew about you that they don’t?
Well, I think that I accepted a long time ago that, by the nature of my life, my life is an inkblot test, a Rorschach test; people project their own personal prejudices, fantasies, and dreams onto my life, so it’s a mirror image of who they are. What they perceive, related to me, is largely related—because my life and success is so interconnected—it is a reflection not simply of my actual life, but of what people believe my life is all about, and of what their own personal prejudices are.

What do you regard as your proudest accomplishment? And what do you regard as your biggest shortcoming?
Well, I think that the greatest thing that I’ve managed to accomplish—and the part that I think I take the greatest pride in—is playing some significant part in the changing of our social, sexual values. I’m very secure in that. The greatest shortcoming? [laughs, and can be heard saying, “What would you say, Mary?,” before resuming] I’m asking Mary—Mary O’Connor—who’s sitting here, my secretary. [Mary can be heard saying something, after which Hefner continues.] Impatience, yes, probably. Impatience—I’m always looking for perfection.

Many people look at you and the life that you lead and feel that you have lived “the American dream.” Based on your understanding of what that is—and I know that you have spoken very eloquently about it in the past—is that an accurate assessment?
Well, I would say that, from my own point of view, I think that I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. But I think anybody’s lucky who dreams impossible dreams and makes them come true, and plays some part in changing the world. I’m a very lucky fella, and I appreciate that.

Part of the lucky part of your life is that you’ve been around so many beautiful, beautiful women. Therefore, I wonder, if somebody put a gun to your head and asked you—in your expert opinion—to name the three most beautiful women who have lived during your lifetime, who would you name?
The three most beautiful? I don’t know. Marilyn Monroe, I suppose, to begin with. I don’t know. Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Pamela Anderson? I don’t know.

Many years from now, when we’re all gone, how would you like to be remembered?
Well, that’s the same thing—I hope I’ll be remembered as somebody who played some part in changing the social values and sexual values of this time.

What is the secret to having even just one beautiful girlfriend at the age of 84?
Well, I’ve tried it both ways. I’ve been happier with multi-girlfriends than I was with one wife, but I’m in one relationship now with Crystal Harris—one-on-one—and I’m very happy.

RELATED: Click here to read my interview with Brigitte Berman, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who directed “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel.”

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