I was in bed with Jim Carrey, Goldie Hawn&Charlton Heston... The Big Breakfast was a cauldron of sexuality

Just imagine going to work and your job is climbing on to a pretend bed with Charlton Heston, Jim Carrey, Andie MacDowell, Alicia Silverstone, Johnny Mathis, Graham Norton or Goldie Hawn.

- VANESSA FELTZ

Imagine getting glammed up in full make-up, false eyelashes and a fishtail ballgown 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 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 disinhibitor 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.

Stars didn't know why they had 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.

Joan Rivers was ridiculously quickwitted. Whatever I asked, she shot back an instant hilarious one-liner.

People thought we'd been working on material for weeks.