Dancer, Actress. She was the wife of Sammy Davis Jr., whom she met on the set of the musical "Golden Boy" in London in 1967, and on May 11, 1970 they were married in a Philadelphia courthouse, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson officiating. That union lasted until Mr. Davis succumbed to throat cancer on May 16, 1990, exactly five days after their 20th wedding anniversary. In 1989 they had adopted a son, named Manny. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina as Altovise (pronounced as "alto VEESE" to rhyme with geese) Joanne Gore on August 30, 1943, she was reared in Brooklyn, New York and performed during the 1960s as a chorus-line dancer in various musical shows both in London, England and on Broadway in New York. She was active with several philanthropic organizations in Los Angeles. She performed at many benefit programs, particularly for SHARE Inc., a non-profit group that raises money for developmentally disabled, abused and neglected children. When her husband passed away in 1990, she was left to sort through $2,708,901.75 in unpaid personal income taxes, earning her a spot on the California Franchise Tax Board's list of the top 250 delinquent taxpayers (2008), while simultaneously trying to oversee his troubled estate. In 2008, she filed litigation against two former business partners in federal court, alleging they had tricked her into signing away the rights to her husband's estate. That lawsuit was still pending at the time of her death. Altovise Joanne Gore Davis died at age 65 of complications from a stroke at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) where she had been hospitalized there since being admitted on March 12, 2009.
Dancer, Actress. She was the wife of Sammy Davis Jr., whom she met on the set of the musical "Golden Boy" in London in 1967, and on May 11, 1970 they were married in a Philadelphia courthouse, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson officiating. That union lasted until Mr. Davis succumbed to throat cancer on May 16, 1990, exactly five days after their 20th wedding anniversary. In 1989 they had adopted a son, named Manny. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina as Altovise (pronounced as "alto VEESE" to rhyme with geese) Joanne Gore on August 30, 1943, she was reared in Brooklyn, New York and performed during the 1960s as a chorus-line dancer in various musical shows both in London, England and on Broadway in New York. She was active with several philanthropic organizations in Los Angeles. She performed at many benefit programs, particularly for SHARE Inc., a non-profit group that raises money for developmentally disabled, abused and neglected children. When her husband passed away in 1990, she was left to sort through $2,708,901.75 in unpaid personal income taxes, earning her a spot on the California Franchise Tax Board's list of the top 250 delinquent taxpayers (2008), while simultaneously trying to oversee his troubled estate. In 2008, she filed litigation against two former business partners in federal court, alleging they had tricked her into signing away the rights to her husband's estate. That lawsuit was still pending at the time of her death. Altovise Joanne Gore Davis died at age 65 of complications from a stroke at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) where she had been hospitalized there since being admitted on March 12, 2009.
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