Ever since Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine in 1953, he's been lauded by millions for getting puritanical America out of the sexual pits.

He's been reviled by millions more for exploiting women all the way to the bank.

But call him a social activist? A humanitarian? A deep, caring thinker who champions justice, equality and free speech for all?

These words aren't the first that spring to mind about America's godfather of the sexual revolution.

Oscar-winning director Brigitte Berman wants to change that perception in the new documentary, "Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel."

"The press often goes for that sexier side: the girls, the sex, the sensationalism. But I wanted to make a film that shows the other side of Hugh," Berman told CTV.ca recently.

That Berman does and with Hefner's blessing.

"I know myself very, very well," says Hefner, 84, who spoke with CTV.ca from the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

"On many levels I'm considered the luckiest guy on the planet. Other people hate my guts," he says.

"But I've said very early on in life that the perception of Hefner and ‘Playboy' are like an inkblot test. It says a great deal more about the person who expresses the opinions, whatever they might be, than me."

Starting from the magazine's launch, which Hefner accomplished by raising $8,000 from investors including $1,000 from his mother, Berman whisks viewers from Hef's unfulfilling early years as a married man and copywriter at Esquire to Playboy's glory days in the 1960s and 1970s.

"Throughout the 60s and 70s we were at the top of our game. Nobody did it better," says Hefner.

The magazine phenom spawned two TV shows Hefner hosted: "Playboy's Penthouse" (1959-1960) and "Playboy After Dark" (1969 – 1970).

The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago (then Hefner's home base) in 1960, giving swingers a hip, drinking-hole filled with all the Playboy Bunnies they could handle.

Red-blooded college boys ran to pick up "Playboy" (even clean-cut singer Pat Boone confesses to that in Berman's film).

Wonderful writers like Saul Bellow, Michael Crichton, John LeCarre, Kurt Vonnegut, "Roots" author Alex Haley and many more rushed to Hefner's aid.

"We gave writers freedom," says Hefner. "We printed things when other magazines didn't and we paid very good money."

All along the way Hefner played the man about town, partying hard, bedding Playboy Playmates to his fill, and promoting his business into America's first men's lifestyle brand.

"My staff and I felt like we were in the right place at the right time," says Hefner. "We were changing the world and having a lot of fun doing it."

But Berman's film goes beyond the parties to showcase Hefner's role in America's civil rights movement.

Hefner changed America

When no one else would, Hefner featured racially-integrated groups like the Gateway Singers, as well as African-American artists like singer Sammy Davis Jr. and comic Dick Gregory on his TV shows.

When McCarthyism was at its peak, Hefner booked blacklisted performers such as harmonica virtuoso Larry Addler and singer Josh White.

Even when Vietnam divided America, Hefner had artists like Country Joe and the Fish on his shows singing their anti-war anthem, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag."

"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam," the voices sing out in Berman's film.

"Seeing that moment again moved me to tears," says Hefner. "It breaks my heart because we're back there today sending our boys to war."

Sandwiched between all those Playboy bunnies, says Berman, is a guy who bought back Playboy Clubs at a loss because some refused to serve black patrons.

Hefner jumped to the aid of everyday people caught up in America's outdated sexual laws.

In the early 1970s, for example, one Florida woman wrote to Playboy after earning 15 years for manslaughter because she had an abortion.

Hefner's legal team went to Florida, reopened the case, and got the woman's sentence reduced to a minimum amount of time under house arrest.

The case was also used as reference in a review of American abortion laws.

"To me that's extraordinary," says Berman. "It's an inspiring moment for women's rights."

But the most intriguing revelation of all comes from Reverend Malcolm Boyd, one of Berman's many interview subjects.

"I think love is his rosebud," Boyd says, comparing Hefner's missing link to that of the emotionally-unfulfilled hero in the movie classic, "Citizen Kane."

"I think that rosebud line is true, sure. Love is most people's rosebud," says Hefner.

"I was raised in a puritan home without a lot of hugging or kissing. My life has been an overcompensation of that, and a fascination with trying to understand the why of it."