Live TV was a cauldron of simmering sexuality

In our final exclusive extract from her brilliant new memoir, Express columnist and broadcaster VANESSA FELTZ reveals her crazy days sharing a bed with the world's most famous names on the Big Breakfast, why Boris Johnson always delivered for her radio show... and a close escape from Rolf Harris

- Vanessa Feltz

IMAGINE going to work every morning and your job is climbing onto a pretend bed with Charlton Heston, Jim Carrey, Andie MacDowell, Alicia Silverstone, Johnny Mathis, Graham Norton or Goldie Hawn. Imagine getting glammed up in full makeup, false eyelashes and a fishtail ball gown at 7am, kissing Zoe Ball hello, gossiping with the Bay City Rollers and boarding a bed with the late great Joan Rivers.

The Big Breakfast was joy without an autocue. Chaos was king, yet our international celebrity booking team enticed the most dazzling A-listers in Hollywood's constellation all the way to the backstreets of Stratford, east London. My two blessed predecessors - Paula Yates and Paul O'Grady are sharing a cloud in Heaven, so you'll have to rely on my testimony when I tell you that broadcasting on a bed does funny things to people. Some fall asleep. Some become amorous - after all, there's a bosomy blonde within arm's reach.

The BB bed was a dis-inhibitor that would jolt celebrities out of their rut. And it was transportable. If a cosmic superstar couldn't find the time or inclination to go to the bed, the bed would go to them. Superstars didn't know why they'd been manhandled down a hotel corridor to lie on a bed with a size 22 blonde, which made their answers to my impertinent questions even more authentic.

Eccentric, possibly stoned, Woody Harrelson distinguished himself by being the only on-the-bed guest to peel a mango meticulously throughout the interview without referring to it. I refused to give him the satisfaction, so I didn't refer to it either. He peeled, and mumbled, and was difficult to love, but not as difficult as Dennis Quaid who removed his shoes and socks mid-chat without explaining why, wiggling his hairy toes in a belligerent simmering funk.