They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but in my line of work that’s occasionally unavoidable.

Over the years I’ve interviewed several famous faces who’ve been part of the cultural fabric of my life. And although it’s a thrill to meet someone I’ve long been a fan of, I try and stick to the golden rule of professionalism – don’t get starstruck.

But now I’ve gone and broken the starstruck rule, although in this case it was “Starsky-struck”.

Like most children of the Seventies, I was an avid viewer of US cop series Starsky And Hutch. Boys watched it for the car chases, the crime-fighting and the red Gran Torino with its crazy white stripe – but for girls, it was all about the swoon factor.

To coin a Jackie magazine phrase, these cops were “dreamboats”. If you were female with a pulse you fell into either the Starsky or the Hutch camp.

Hot-headed Dave Starsky was streetwise and swarthy, wrapped in a chunky knit cardigan, while Ken Hutchinson was blond, smooth and reserved. I adored them both, but by the age of nine, I’d decided that Hutch was the one I’d eventually marry.

The show ended in 1979, but had a lasting impact. Mention the words ‘Starsky and Hutch’ to women of a certain age and they’re likely to melt into a dreamy sigh.

There were dreamy sighs all round when I told female friends I was to interview Paul Michael Glaser, alias Starsky, last week.

“He was my first kiss. I used to kiss the back of my hand and pretend it was him,” said one friend. “I never stopped loving him. Can I come with you?” said another.

Invited to interview him ahead of his star turn in Fiddler On The Roof in Bradford next year, I waited for him in a little backstage room, butterflies dancing in my tummy and a bit of a stress rash creeping up my neck. I felt like a giddy nine-year-old.

Suddenly a serious-looking 70-year-old with a grizzly grey beard was shaking my hand. I chatted nervously and he replied with a few monosyllables in his slow Brooklyn drawl.

Just when I was starting to feel like Michael Parkinson during his Meg “let’s just wrap it up” Ryan interview, he lightened up and chatted a little, even cracking a joke.

Ten minutes later, he was gone and I felt a bit flat. While it was great to meet him, I couldn’t help thinking that TV heroes are perhaps best left in the past, in their chunky cardis and Gran Torinos.

Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t marry David Soul after all.