Love takes its time to bloom

Sunday, May 21, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.

On a November night four years ago, a Wayne Newton event at Mandalay Bay attracted then-strangers Alma Davies and David London. A mutual friend introduced them that evening, but it was almost a year before their paths crossed again.

Davies, a professional classical Spanish dancer by trade, grew up in Carnegie Hall, where her mother ran a dance school. Davies later danced and taught there, and went on to perform and star with Antonio Valero at Radio City Music Hall in 1953. She went by the name of Alma Rosita.

London grew up in the world of music, singing with the Robert Mitchell Boychoir in Hollywood during high school. He came to Las Vegas in 1955 as the lead singer in the Riviera hotel show featuring Liberace. From Vegas he went to New York, where he performed on Broadway before returning to Vegas in 1966 for the opening of Caesars Palace as a featured performer in the Celebrity Lounge.

Davies and London knew many of the same people, and both had lived on West 72nd Street at 7th Avenue in New York City at different times - details that didn't come to light until a friend's 2002 Labor Day party.

Davies composed and arranged a song as a tribute to 9/11, "America's Freedom Anthem." London heard the song at the party and was deeply moved.

Davies, working on another song, learned of London's musical background and called to see if he would collaborate on it with her. They started working together as friends, Davies recalled: "(It had) nothing to do with romance."

They learned that both loved classic movies, big band music and that, at different times, they had both taught at Fred Astaire's dance school in New York. So they went dancing, several times a week, but still just as friends.

"We both loved the situation," she said. "We could go and dance and then say good night with no pressure."

One night, however, Davies' hand slipped to the nape of London's neck on the dance floor, and the spark ignited, she said: "After five weeks of dancing, suddenly he felt different in my arms. From that moment we couldn't keep our hands off each other."

Says London: "Now we're so full of love and joy."

They have been together almost four years now, and their musical partnership has continued. With Davies' support and encouragement, London has just recorded "Here's to Romance," his first solo album of original songs. And Davies is working to have her anthem played at memorials for 9/11 in New York City and Pennsylvania.

The dancing and romance continues, as it did Wednesday night at Davies' condo near the Strip.

"People of all ages tell us we're inspiring and we give them hope," London said. "I have dreams of bringing romance back to the American public. We come together as something that is more powerful than we are separately."

- tiffany brown