Oprah Winfrey credits comedian Robin Williams with making her TV's biggest star - because an interview they recorded as young up-and-coming talents helped land her a top job.

In Winfrey's new book, O's Big Book of Happiness, she reveals how her high-spirited chat with the energetic funnyman - back when she was just 24 - helped convince network bosses to hand her her first talk show.

She describes the interview as "five minutes of the most exhilarating, wild, off-the-charts minutes I'd ever spent in an interview with the most uninhibited, out-of-the-box, free-falling-in-every-second celebrity/human I'd ever met."

TV chiefs were impressed and stole her from the local TV station she was working at and hired her to co-host People are Talking with Richard Sher.