CURTIS BACK AT WORK ON MOVIES, BUT IT'S CHILDREN FIRST.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Jamie Lee Curtis has left for England for lengthy reshoots on her John Cleese film, ``Fierce Creatures.'' With her are her children.

``I never leave them,'' says Curtis of 9-year-old daughter Annie, and infant son Thomas Hayden, whom Jamie and husband Christopher Guest adopted at birth in March.

Jamie is just coming off a year's hiatus and is now thinking of taking another year off.

``I really missed being a mommy when Annie was little and I was dashing home late from work. I'm re-analyzing my commitment to working motherhood. When Annie was little, I needed to work. I have less financial need now. I've been successful. I'm very lucky. Many women can't afford to make a choice.''

Curtis had Annie with her when she shot ``Fierce Creatures'' in England last year, enrolling her in school there. Prior to that, she made the fun family comedy ``House Arrest,'' which MGM unfurls Wednesday. She says she only accepted that assignment, about a group of youngsters who hold their squabbling parents captive in the cellar, ``Because I could work it around my schedule with Annie. We shot right here in L.A., in a home constructed on the CBS-Radford lot. The children worked mornings upstairs and the adults worked in the basement in the afternoons. It was an easy, fun shoot.''

Jamie's trip to England means that she'll miss the publication date of her book, ``Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born.'' But she says she'll be making some appearances for it in September. With her children in tow.

New news: Paula Zahn makes it clear she's shedding no tears for her old ``CBS This Morning,'' while the network launches its new morning show this week. Last spring, when she learned CBS planned to shut down the long-suffering ``Morning,'' she had little idea where her reassignment would lead. ``But this is all working out very well for me,'' she says.

Zahn, who has been filling in for the vacationing Dan Rather on ``The CBS Evening News,'' takes over as anchor of the Saturday evening news Sept. 14. She's also becoming part of the ``48 Hours'' team and is supplying segments for other CBS News programs.

``I thought this was going to be the first summer I had any real time off, but it's been one thing after another,'' she says. ``We've been in a big news cycle, unlike previous summers. There have been potent leads to deal with - the downing of the TWA flight, the bomb in Atlanta ...'' Right now, Zahn is in the thick of Republican National Convention coverage.

A women for all seasons: Barbra Streisand pops up as one of the 20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics in George magazine's September issue - and appears as one of the Entertainment Business' Sexiest People in the September In-Style. As you might have heard, the current Buzz has her as one of Hollywood's Scariest People. No word yet on what magazines list Barbra as Most Something in October. We're waiting to hear back from Scientific American. Meanwhile, La Streisand's ``The Mirror Has Two Faces'' recently had its first advance-advance sneak preview locally - with responses that gave Columbia TriStar something to smile about. The feature debuts Nov. 10.

The devil you say: Chillmeister Mick Garris, busy with post-production on ABC's six-hour miniseries version of Stephen King's ``The Shining,'' is also prepping a cable telepic that will serve as a pilot for a ``semi-anthological'' series. The two-hour movie will contain two short stories - ``Chattery Teeth'' by Stephen King, and ``The Body Politic'' by Clive Barker - within a framework that features a storyteller who travels around the country. The title for the movie/series pilot is ``Quicksilver Highway.'' Garris laughs, ``I was pushing to call it `Route 666,' but the networks are apparently a little apprehensive about that.''

Large talent: Tab Hunter, featured in American Movie Classics' ``Ballyhoo 

: The Hollywood Sideshow'' special, which debuts tonight, confesses his favorite leading lady of all time was a he, not a she - Divine, the late 300-plus-pound transvestite he co-starred with in John Waters' ``Polyester.'' ``I worked with the best,'' Hunter tells AMC. ``Geraldine Page, Sophia Loren, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward and Natalie Wood. But Divine is definitely the top of the list.''

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Photo: Jamie Lee Curtis

Re-analyzing commitments