ROSLYN—He made his living trimming beards and cutting hair.

Then Hollywood — and a scraggly-looking moose on the hunt for bananas — walked into Jerry Morris’ life.

Nothing has been quite the same since then.

Morris, who owned the Roslyn Barbershop for nearly three decades, never counted on celebrity status when he signed on as an extra for the popular 1990s era TV show “Northern Exposure”.

He figured on a little fun and a little cash.

He got both. And more.

The now 63-year-old Morris was one of a number of Roslyn area residents who found minor fame — at least locally — as extras for the show ,which was filmed partly in Roslyn.

John and Aggie Ferro, 89 and 87 respectively, were among them.

“We have great memories,” Aggie says. “We all mingled together. That’s what was nice. The actors were very nice. Sometimes we’d go into one of the buildings and take our shoes off and warm our feet and the actors would come and talk to us.”

It wasn’t just the Ferros who made an occasional appearance. Their 1952 Ford pickup truck got used too, Aggie says.

“And we got paid when they used the truck, too,” she adds.

But of all the locals who found some work during the years filming was done in Roslyn, it was Morris, an affable, easy-going man — who was best known. He is the only local listed on a Wikipedia site about the show.

He appeared in 50 of the show’s 110 episodes. Twice, he had speaking roles as Earl the Barber. His barbershop, now under different ownership but still looking much the same as it did then, also was used for the show.

There were mixed feelings when the film company came to town, he said.

Some people didn’t like the change and the fuss. Another group, “those who got their five acres and didn’t want anyone else to come,” opposed using Roslyn for filming. The third welcomed it. “Kind of like what happened with Suncadia,” he says of the area’s new resort.

“The principals had their own dressing rooms in trailers out behind where Roslyn City Hall is,” he says. “Next level down were the people who had portable dressing rooms. A trailer would hold six of them. Each little room had a cot and a bathroom. You could go in and lay down and study your lines. I got to do that a couple of times.”

Extras made $50 a day. “It could be a six-hour day, or a 12-hour day. You got the same,” he says.

Not everything went smoothly.

“Fifteen takes is the most I ever got involved with as an extra,” he recalls. “All I did was walk down the sidewalk with a couple of other extras. The director was looking for something. They shot it 15 times.”

One day he was told to jaywalk across the street where Alaska State Trooper Sgt. Barbara Semanski, played by character actress Diana Delano, would ticket him. Play it by ear, the director said. Morris did.

“In the middle of the street, she starts writing a ticket. I grab it and toss it to the ground. ‘Give me 20,’ she says and points to the ground. So I start doing push-ups. I’m a hefty guy. I get through maybe five. I’m waiting for the director to say stop. It doesn’t happen. I finally collapse.

“They make an announcement to the crowd: ‘Give our push-up artist a hand.’ So she grabs my hand and I do a stage bow together with a  professional actress right there in front of a crowd.”

Actor John Corbett, who played the role of Chris, a philosophical ex-con who was a radio deejay, was Morris’ favorite. Maybe that’s because Morris was Corbett’s stand-in, taking his position while the film crew adjusted lighting and sound for different scenes.

“All the outdoor scenes were shot here in Roslyn but the interiors were shot on a soundstage in Redmond,” he says.

It was a heady time for a barber from Roslyn.

“It was great. I was signing autographs. People were giving me hugs. I got to live a little bit of what Hollywood people live.

“Five years I did this. It was a heck of an ego trip,” says Morris, who now works for Suncadia and is often introduced as the barber on “Northern Exposure.”

“I was floating three feet off the ground for five years, having the time of my life, getting hugs from people from all over the world. I was having fun, playing my little heart out.”

Media followed him, too. Reporters showed up to shove microphones in front of him. At one point, a reporter from Poland — a woman with long, blond hair — had him cut her hair like that of Maggie, the bush pilot on “Northern Exposure” while the camera rolled.

When Morris was chosen for some spoken lines, he had to join the Screen Actors Guild.

“I still get residuals from the show — $300 or $400 a year. My W-2 comes from Universal Studios,” he says with a laugh.

Earlier this year, a crew from a Canadian television station showed up to film an interview with him for an episode in a series the station is doing on popular TV shows. Morris spent more than an hour in front of the camera. He says he doesn’t know when, or if, that segment will air in the United States.

On July 25, 26 and 27, 80 “Northern Exposure” fans roll into Roslyn for Moosefest, a celebration of the show. Attendees will  include people from the U.S., Canada, Italy and Israel. Moosefest was held annually from 1997 to 2005. Organizers, thinking interest might be waning, held informal Moosefest get-togethers in 2006 and 2007 before organizing a formal event for this year. They were pleased  when the event — which includes walking tours, bus tours, interviews with some “Northern Exposure” participants, a trivia contest and a dinner and raffle of “Northern Exposure” memorabilia — was sold out by this past March.

Count among those attending Jerrilynn Lilyblade (aka Moosechick), a 38-year-old freelance desktop publisher from Denver, Colo. Hooked on “Northern Exposure” while in college, she maintains a website, www.moosechick.com, and has attended all but one of the gatherings.

“It’s just a well-written show, eclectic without being over the top,” she says. “Nothing out there was like it. Nothing has come close since.”

Bellevue’s Kurt Lutterman, 48, is Moosefest director. Until “Northern Exposure” aired, he’d never been a regular TV series watcher.

“I was taken with the sense of community and acceptance and people working together,” he says.

Of those who show up for Moosefest, “we’re diverse politically, economically, socially,” he says. “But we all have a common bond — our fascination with the show.”

As for the moose referenced earlier, his name was Morty and he appeared in the opening credits of each episode.

“The animal handler led Morty through town with a bunch of bananas,” Lilyblade says. “He was part of a captive moose herd maintained at a Washington State University research center. Morty is survived by a number of offspring, including Melody and Matilda, sired in the spring of 1993.”

Moosefest

• Moosefest, a celebration of the “Northern Exposure” TV series takes place July 25, 26 and 27 in Roslyn.



• The formal event is sold-out but members of the public are invited to join Moosefest participants on walking tours of Roslyn scheduled Friday afternoon, Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon.



• Among the unusual events: In 2002, Moosefest featured a “Running of the Bulls” and several participants ran through Roslyn in boxer shorts.



• Friends of Roslyn, a not-for-profit organization which runs Moosefest, makes a donation to a local organization each year it holds the event. This year’s recipient will be Roslyn Revitalization