NEWPORT - "A lot of people think I'm dead," the old man says.

He shrugs and smiles. He is perched on the edge of his bed, which sits across from the couch in his tiny living room. There are objects everywhere - ceramic figurines, rosary beads, photos, radios, lamps, suit jackets with American flags pinned to the lapels.

This is the domain of Johnny "TV" Peluso, 79. He's not dead yet. Far from it.

Every day, Mr. Peluso listens to his Newport police scanner, a habit he picked up to keep his mind occupied after returning home from World War II.

Every day, he checks on the elderly tenants above his TV repair shop on York Street.

And every day, Mr. Peluso plots his return to city politics, despite the odds against him. It's been 20 years since he held office, and after his last term as mayor, he went to prison for lying to a federal grand jury and pressuring city employees to misuse public money.

Gov. Paul Patton restored his civil rights. Last fall, he got 114 votes as a write-in candidate for City Commission.

He claims his enemies conspired to defeat him. He promises he'll run again.

Meanwhile, two young men from Newport are attempting an ambitious project: writing the authorized biography of Newport's kindliest, most cantankerous public figure.

`So many fans'

"History goes on around us all the time, and it's so easy to miss what's going on now, because it doesn't seem so grand," says John Hayden, 21, a senior at Thomas More College.

Someday people will want to know all about Johnny "TV" Peluso, but only speculation will remain, Mr. Hayden says. So he and David Turner, a fellow graduate of Newport High School, are taping interviews with their subject and poring over records of his civic life.

"You talk to the regular people, and he's got so many fans," Mr. Hayden says. "I think he really had a heart for poor people."

Still, many say Mr. Peluso's style of politics - essentially doing favors to get votes - has little place in Newport today.

The authors hope to trace the city's transformation through Mr. Peluso's story. But first, they'll have to sort fact from fiction.

It's well-known in Newport that Mr. Peluso was imprisoned by the Germans in World War II.

Last fall, his campaign literature also said he participated in the D-Day invasion at Normandy. Because he is Johnny Peluso, even such patriotic statements are parsed for accuracy.

Newport resident Albrecht Simmang reviewed Mr. Peluso's discharge record and the Army Almanac. His conclusion: Mr. Peluso's division didn't arrive in Normandy until six days after D-Day.

Mr. Peluso insists he was there. He produced a medal dated June 6, 1944, which was recently presented to D-Day campaign veterans by the French government.

He wants to have Mr. Simmang investigated, he says. As always, he is itching for a fight. A comeback. A way to keep his ambition alive.

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com or call (859) 578-5584.