By Haley Cullingham
“In the early 70s, a woman wrote in to Playboy Forum,” says Brigitte Berman in her engaging accent. The Toronto director is on the phone from Los Angeles, talking about her new documentary film, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel. Berman is recalling the discoveries she made pouring over Hef’s thousands of meticulously-kept scrapbooks. “She was put in prison for 15 years on a charge of manslaughter for having had an abortion. She wrote to Playboy Forum, and other letters came in from readers outraged this was happening in America at this time. Mr. Hefner sent his legal team down to Florida, and re-opened the case, and the result was that she was let out of prison, she was given house arrest for a totally minimum sentence, and more importantly, the judge asked for copies of the argument to be used in changing the law for abortion in that state. Which led directly to Roe vs. Wade. When I read that, I just went ‘wow.'”

Berman’s fantastic documentary, which opens in Toronto on Friday, August 6th, looks at a side of Hugh Hefner not always considered. Friends since he invited her to movie night for a screening of her film about Jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, it wasn’t until Hefner’s 80th birthday, in 2006, that the thought occurred to Berman to capture her friend on screen.

“Going there, it was amazing. It was my first really sumptuous, incredible Playboy Mansion party, with the colours, the painted girls, people in lingerie. I would find myself kind of watching and observing it, and I thought, I know all these other things about Mr. Hefner. I knew all about his other sides, this activism, and I thought, I’m not seeing anything like that at this birthday celebration. On the plane back, I said, that is the film I want to make next. A film about the other side of Mr. Hefner. As soon as I could, I put together a treatment, and a day later, I received a fax from him saying how much he loved the treatment, and saying whenever I wanted to start, go ahead. He gave me absolute creative freedom. And he never ever wavered from that.”

Seeing the film, it’s easy to understand what an honour trust like that can be. Especially from a man like Hef, who was known for micro-managing every fleshy inch and intellectual ampersand that made its way into Playboy. “It also becomes a real responsibility,” says Berman. “But quite frankly, as a filmmaker, I could not work any other way. Then you work with your hands tied.”

The film begins with Hef’s high school years, and traces him through marriage, divorce, fatherhood, and always an unwavering commitment to his vision and his ideals. The man who emerges behind Berman’s lens is one to admire: fighting for civil rights, sexual freedoms, freedom of the press, freedom of speech. Breaking ground by refusing to accept imposed bigotry. Walking through the streets of Chicago during the riots, hosting black performers on his television program when no one else would. Enthusiastic about a culture that could talk about sex, enjoy sex, openly, frankly. Fighting for birth control, fighting against sodomy laws, fighting to legalize marijuana. The film shows, as Berman herself discovered, “how personally active he was in creating change.”

This is not a side of Hugh Hefner that is part of the predominant cultural dialogue. The side that is, however, is not one that Berman fails to shed light on in her film. “I did not want a Valentine to Mr. Hefner, I wanted to set the record straight. But in doing so, I had to have my yeasayers and my naysayers.”

One naysayer is feminist Susan Brown-Miller, who went head to head with Hefner years ago on a talk show, and takes him on again, albeit not face to face, in front of Berman’s lens. “When I met her,” says Berman, “I liked her immediately. Here was a woman who was as passionate about feminism as I am about filmmaking. And I respect and admire passion that is real.”

Brown-Miller decries Hefner for creating a rigid female stereotype we must all fall into. While Hefner feels he made it okay for the Girl Next Door to like and enjoy sex, Brown-Miller feels he made the girl next door into a fetish object. Berman gives both sides their due.

“I benefited from what she has brought about with her fight for feminism,” says Berman. “I’m very, very aware of that. And also, what she is saying is very much what a certain part of the female psyche really believes. It was very, very important to have that in the film. I loved the interview with her. I was delighted. The only thing that irked me was when I tried to tell her some of the other side of Mr. Hefner, she did not want to hear that. I understand it’s because she needs to stay on her ground, and she cannot open up. But I thought, a pity. Because we all as human beings do need to look at the other side.”

That other side is what is often eloquently and intelligently, occasionally humourously, and almost always fondly captured in the interviews in Berman’s film. Speaking with Gene Simmons, Berman says, she “laughed the loudest and the hardest.” At the end of their interview, Simmons told her, “I love to talk about myself, that’s all I ever talk about. The very fact that I just spent the last 40 minutes talking about Hugh Hefner really says how much the man means to me.”

From Joan Baez to Jenny McCarthy to Rev. Jesse Jackson, Berman tells Hef’s legacy through those who had the privilege of living it alongside him, whether rooting for him or engaging in intelligent discourse. And one thing about Hefner that comes through clearly in the film is his fierce intelligence. But this, ultimately, was not what struck Berman most about her old friend.

“He is a man who dares to the ultimate. He dares and dares and dares and does. Always. Many people will just talk. He will do. And you can’t take that away from him, no matter what you think of him. And I think we need more people like that. Because that’s how more human things occur in the world.”