Flashes: February 28, 1992

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Guess what? Claudia Schiffer has come home. The rootin' Teuton supermodel, who won fame as the Guess? girl three years ago, is featured in the ad campaign for the jeans company that started running this month. Guess?, which last year celebrated its 10th anniversary, paid the Brigitte Bardot look-alike close to $1 million for the campaign, shot in the Mojave Desert. Her return to the jeans ads is a big relief to the Marciano Bros., her employers, who found some of Schiffer's sensuality but none of her innocence in the looks of her several replacements.

Music
Three weeks ago, Eddie Murphy had a marathon three-day noodling/sampling/recording session with the Jersey City rap duo P.M. Dawn at his north Jersey manse; the tunes should turn up on his forthcoming Columbia CD. Says Dawn's Prince B. of Murphy, ''He's a better musician than people realize.''

TV
Rapper Tone Loc makes a guest appearance on Fox's comedy series Roc on March 15, and is negotiating for a recurring role with the show next season. His character is an anti-crack-dealer activist. ''He believes in just blowing them up,'' says L oc, who finds acting easy: ''What the hell, I was a tree in elementary school once.''

Jodie Foster may direct the pilot episode of a possible weekly NBC series based on her film, Little Man Tate. ''But nothing's going to happen,'' says an insider at Spelling Entertainment, Foster's potential partner, ''unless we get a firm commitment for a series.'' The roles of whiz kid Fred Tate and his gonzo mom are currently being cast.

Movies
Spellbound by occult writer Anne Rice, producer David Geffen is turning her recent warlock novel, The Witching Hour, into a movie to be directed by Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon 3). The film may start shooting this summer. Rice's first novel, Interview With the Vampire (1976), might also make its way to the screen. The book has been optioned for a dozen years in vain, but Geffen, who now owns the rights, vows, ''It's going to happen and it's going to be epic. Just wait.''

Pop star he may be, but what R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe really wants to do is produce. He recently talked up his production company, known for R.E.M. videos and politically correct public-service announcements (PSAs) for pro-choice and other issues, at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. The result: prospects for money from unnamed independent producers for PSAs, and for Desperation Angels, a feature film Stipe calls ''a summation of the wreckage of the '80s.'' Director Jim McKay (R.E.M.'s music videos) sees it as ''a comic tragedy road picture,'' and if funding comes through this month, he'll start filming in September. A great soundtrack is promised, none of it by R.E.M.

Written by: Harold Goldberg, Jane Frances, Pat H. Broeske