Hey, dude, weren’t you the one heckling Nixon at Expo?

Call him the Dude. That or His Dudeness, Duder or El Duderino – if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

Addressing Jeff Dowd – the real-life inspiration for “The Big Lebowski” – is not a formal affair.

But as the cult of the Coen brothers’ 1998 comedy starring Jeff Bridges has grown, so has Dowd’s fame.

The 55-year-old film producer first met Joel and Ethan Coen when he helped promote their 1984 debut, “Blood Simple.” The Coens decided the large, boisterous Dowd, who referred to himself as “the Dude,” would yield endless possibilities as a movie character.

Eight years later, the fan base for the film continues to grow. A new collector’s edition DVD comes out today, and New York will host the “Lebowski Fest” on Friday and Saturday – the fourth year fans will dress up as characters from the film, bowl a few games and sip the Dude’s signature white Russians.

Q. Did the Coens tell you they were working on “The Big Lebowski” with you in mind?

A. I actually heard it through a guy named Ben Barenholt who produced a couple of their movies: “The boys are doin’ a movie about ‘ya, Dude.” They told me shortly after that.

Q. Did you work with Jeff Bridges beforehand?

A. Just a day, but he got it. I’m pretty easy to mimic. (Robert) Redford does a good impression of me, too. I’m kind of bigger than life and the way I use my hands and mumble and lay back with my belly sticking out. In the script, it says, “The Dude, in rumpled clothes. Casualness runs deep.”

Q. Do you bowl?

A. Not that much. I know where Joel and Ethan got the bowling idea. It was during “Blood Simple,” when I was helping them with the marketing and distribution. I had an idea to throw a party at a bowling alley in Santa Monica and it was like a thousand people. That’s where that came from.

Q. Sam Elliot narrates at the start of the movie that the Dude is “the man for his time and place.” Is that true of you as well?

A. I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the right place and the right time for the better part of half a century – being around a lot of interesting people and a lot of interesting events. …

I’m there at 17 years old traveling around Europe with the Living Theater and, by chance, the Rolling Stones. I was around Ralph Nader when he started up his PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) organization. I got involved with Redford … there’s a whole story about the first year of Sundance and how it was started.

I was involved in the last demonstration against Richard Nixon at the Spokane World Fair. (Dowd was a member of the Seattle Seven, an anti-Vietnam protest group alluded to in “Lebowski.”)

Q. I hear you’re writing an autobiography?

A. I’m almost done. It’s called “The Dude Abides.” It’s about how friends can get together and do things positively and hopefully using this somewhat icon status I have now, bequeathed to me by Joel and Ethan … it’ll help empower the younger generation.

The birthday bunch

Musician Chuck Berry is 79. Actor Peter Boyle is 70. Actress Pam Dawber (“Mork and Mindy”) is 54. Actor Jean-Claude Van Damme is 45. Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is 44. Actress Erin Moran (“Happy Days”) is 44. Actor Vincent Spano is 43. Singer Josh Gracin is 25.