E-Mail This Article to a Friend WORK IT Isn't deity its own reward? BY MIKE MILIARD

Oprah Winfrey’s epochal appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, after years of acrimony between the two television titans, is huge news this week. But Rocky Twyman, even as he heads to the Ed Sullivan Theatre to witness "the healing of the wounds" firsthand, dreams of even bigger headlines. As Oprah extends an olive branch to the gap-toothed gabber, Twyman is campaigning to get her nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Really.

"This is the first time that there’s been a grassroots campaign to get someone a Nobel Peace Prize," says the 56-year-old PR consultant from his home in Rockville, Maryland. You might scoff at efforts to bestow such a lofty honor on a mega-rich talk-show host. But Twyman is serious. "She’s a wonderful, caring, and forgiving person," he says. "She’s really raised the awareness of the world about serious social problems: AIDS, women’s inequality, war, poverty, hunger."

Twyman, a Seventh Day Adventist, says the world needs a "revolution of peace." Oprah is one person whose charitable endeavors — from her child-predator watch list to her $10 million donation to Hurricane Katrina relief — could help bring it about. "I’m a churchgoer. People may make fun of this, but God just really woke me up one night, and I started writing about this campaign," he says. And he’s confident he’ll reach his goal of 100,000 signatures, which he’ll deliver to Jimmy Carter (who could then nominate Oprah to the Nobel Committee) by February 1. "Eventually, I think an entertainer is gonna get that prize," Twyman says.

Meanwhile, another citizen is toiling tirelessly for a somewhat more attainable goal: getting Jack Benny on the forthcoming 39-cent stamp. Laura Leff is launching a multi-pronged attack to get the penny-pinching funnyman — who always swore he was not a day over 39 — stuck on letters across this great land. She’s established an online petition, she’s enlisted Benny’s hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, she’s even haggling with US senators. "John Kerry has voiced that he’s a Jack Benny fan, so I’ll be doing an appeal directly to him for support," she says. "Ted Kennedy, heck, his father, it’s said, made the entire house stop when the Jack Benny program was on.... I’ll talk to him as well."

Time is of the essence. "Postage-stamp rates never go down," says Leff, who founded the International Jack Benny Fan Club, of which she’s still president, when she was 10 years old. (She’s 36 now, but tells people she’s 39.) "If we don’t capitalize on this now, [the 39-cent stamp] will never come again." Leff, a consultant from Oakland, California, devotes a hefty 20 hours a week to her quest. When she’s between contracts, she makes it a full-time job.

Surf the Internet and you’ll find countless others who agitate on behalf of celebrities. The site FreeKatie.net aims to wrest Katie Holmes from Tom Cruise’s clutches. Sites like petitiononline.com and petitionspot.com make it easy for fans to save stars from themselves. (Or at least sign a petition instructing them to.) One page pleads with Lindsay Lohan to please "pick up a sandwich and eat it, or ice cream, or any food..." Another undertakes a doomed quest to save Nick and Jessica’s marriage. (Too little, too late.)

Why do they do it? "This has been a horrific year, man," Twyman says. "You see these people suffering, and it breaks your heart." He’s championing someone who’s done something to fix it. "Oprah made, I believe, the largest single donation to the Katrina victims out there. I’d like to challenge all the millionaires and billionaires to at least match it."

"Most people I know, when you mention Jack, this smile comes over their face," says Leff. "They just go into this warm place. ‘Oh, I remember him! He was so funny!’ There’s so many things in the world to be upset about these days, that to be able to do some good, to be able to make people happy, is very gratifying. That’s worth a great deal."

Visit www.oprah4peaceprize.org and www.jackbenny.org/stamp/jack_benny_stamp_petition.htm