It’s been a career as sparkly as her personality.
Born and raised in Islington, the Cambridge graduate started in journalism, first at the Jewish Chronicle and then for this very paper.
But it was when she made the jump to TV that she became the household name she still is today.
Taking over from and , she dazzled on the - interviewing A-listers without having to get out of bed….
It won her her own morning shows, Vanessa and The Vanessa Show, before she fell in love with the world of radio.
With 30 years of celebrity stories to tell, it’s made writing her new autobiography the trip down memory lane.
Here, , looks back on the craziness of those early years…
Ex cl usiv e By Vanessa FeltzImagine to work every morning and your job is climbing on to a pretend bed with Charlton Heston, Andie McDowell, Alicia Silverstone, Johnny Mathis, or . Imagine getting glammed up in full makeup, false eyelashes and a fishtail ball gown at 7am, kissing 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.
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My two blessed predecessors – and – 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, 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 quick-witted. Whatever I asked, she shot back an instant hilarious one-liner. People thought we’d been working on material for weeks.
There’s no need for A-listers to make nice, but some people are naturally polite and friendly. Goldie Hawn is one of those people. She hardly needed endorsement from a morning audience, but the moment our chat finished, she asked: “Was I okay? Was that fun for you?” She was adorable: lively, lovely, and worried about a small spot on her chin.
I’d smuggled my daughter Allegra in who was having a rough time at school. Goldie said she reminded her of her own daughter, Kate Hudson, just six years older. She exuded such concern that Allegra told her the whole story. Goldie’s team were waiting, but Goldie carefully explained happy people don’t bully – and told her to feel sorry for the bully. Then Goldie hugged her. We’ll both adore her forever.
Get in. Flog the product. Get out. That’s the formula. Unless you’re actor Danny DeVito. He arrived on the bed buzzing. He’d seen a Russian play in French and didn’t give a fig for the film he was meant to sell. Danny was also the only guest to bring chocolates from the Bois de Boulogne and distribute them to floor managers and makeup artists. He never got round to publicising his film.
The Big Breakfast bed was a cauldron of simmering sexuality. If I’d given way to my baser inclinations, I’d have enjoyed post-show orgies. I was ripe for seduction but wary of home-wrecking, especially mine. I politely declined. Some no-thank-yous were easy. Others required more fortified moral fibre.
Wesley Snipes made a flying visit to the UK. His thesis on the bed was that he’d like to climb my twin peaks and push criminals to certain death in the crevice of my cleavage. Back then in 1996, I thought I was happily married, but when my husband f****ed off three years later, uppermost among my regrets was “Damn! I bloody well should have sh****d Wesley Snipes!”
Jurassic Park hero Jeff Goldblum was quite simply sex on muscular, exceptionally shapely legs. One look at him and my ovaries somersaulted. He paints, plays jazz piano and looks deeply into your eyes. He is the mensch against whom I measure all other men and find them wanting. I think he liked me a little bit too. He invited me to a party in the West End that night. I took my husband with me. Jeff spotted me and waved me over. Am I overstating it to say his face fell as he saw my hand interlaced with my husband’s?
Then there were the worst bedfellows, including Madonna who was too gigantic to entice into our bed. Instead, we had an allocated 14 minutes at the London junket to publicise the movie version of Evita. Madonna was late. Channel 4 were billing ‘Madonna and Vanessa’ on the hour every hour. Six hours later, I was pushed into the room for six minutes. She looked bored, knackered and hostile. She didn’t bother looking up. The cameraman barked: “Lean back, Vanessa. You’re obscuring Madonna”.
“Good Lord,” I snapped. “Obscuring Madonna would be the pinnacle of my career”.
Her head shot up. We were off. She said Lourdes, a couple of months old, was upstairs and she was exhausted breast-feeding her between interviews. I asked if she was still into sex two months after having a baby. She smiled and complimented me on my bountiful bust.
Years later, on my Radio London show, would drop in once a month to answer questions. He was a huge hit with the team. If the milk ran out, they’d put in a call to Bojo who’d stop off on his bike and pick up a carton on the way in. Helmet askew, bicycle clips akimbo, he would bowl into the building. From a presenter’s perspective, he was unbeatable.
His rhetorical flourishes inevitably earned us front-page headlines. Did I wonder if his verbal volleying was sport and if he cared more for the performance than the problems he was meant to be addressing? Sometimes. Mostly, watching him was a masterclass in Kipling’s common touch.
, by Vanessa Feltz (Transworld, £22), is published on October 24.
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