Nyakio and David Grieco: a couple that was meant to be

By Helene Seifer

Nyakio and David Grieco are both children of the ’70s from Upstate New York. She was born Nyakio Kamoche to Kenyan immigrants in Buffalo and lived throughout the tri-state area before moving to Oklahoma by the time she was nine. David was born two years earlier to parents of Italian and Irish heritage in Watertown, New York, and stayed there until he went to Alabama for college.

They could have met as children at the park in Syracuse when her father and his uncle were professors at the university there. But they didn’t.

They should have met after college when they lived within blocks of each other in Los Angeles on three separate occasions. But they didn’t.

They met at last in the fall of 1997. Nyakio, an assistant in talent management, was asked to evaluate the acting reel of David Grieco, whose older brother Richard was known from the original “21 Jump Street” television series. She thought David was cute and recommended that he should be signed, which he was.

David and Nyakio spoke often on the telephone about his upcoming auditions. She appreciated his kindness and “passion about making a difference in this world.”

“I desperately wanted to meet him,” Nyakio reveals, “So I invited him to go to drinks under the guise of wanting to talk to him about his career.”

They met, and he brought her to see his bronze sculptures in his nearby art studio. She was impressed.

It wasn’t until three years later, in November 2000, that they finally went on their first date. Nyakio had been given two tickets to “The Lion King,” and David joined her.

“By the time we had dinner [after the show], I knew it was going to be something,” Nyakio acknowledged.

“I fell in love with her, or realized I had been in love already, when we went to ‘The

Lion King,’” David says. “It changed my life.”

At dinner, David asked her what new place she’d most like to visit, and she replied “Italy.” Three years later, on Nyakio’s 30th birthday, David gave her a journal with pictures of Italian locations. On the last page he had affixed plane tickets to the Bel Paese.

Nyakio was certain David planned to propose on the trip, and she was right. However, as the vacation days went by without a proposal, Nyakio began to get grumpy.

She called her Los Angeles roommate to complain, “I’m not sure what I’m doing. I just don’t feel right.” David, (Please turn to page 25)