SHORT TAKES : ‘Mod Squad’ Star at Her ‘Peak’

Peggy Lipton (you remember--”the blonde” on “Mod Squad”) quit show biz 17 years ago to be a wife and mom. Now this displaced homemaker is on the comeback trail, starring in “Twin Peaks.”

“It was great, but I was scared,” Lipton, 42, said of her return to work. “It’s true for any woman because your sense of yourself has changed so much.

“My whole energy has changed. But you have a great advantage: You know yourself better. I had no idea who I was at that age. None,” Lipton said in this week’s issue of USA Weekend.

When “Mod Squad” went off the air, Lipton ditched her bell-bottoms to marry producer Quincy Jones and raise their daughters, Rashida, now 14, and Kidada, 16. The couple split up in 1986, but they’re still close, Lipton said.

Now, Lipton plays a diner owner on “Twin Peaks,” an avant-garde television series by director David Lynch.

“I love working and I get upset now when I don’t do enough,” she said. “But it was a conscious choice to be a wife and mother. Right now I don’t have any mother-work conflicts because I stayed home with my kids and I wouldn’t trade that experience for being the biggest star.”