R.I.P. Danielle Spencer: ‘What’s Happening!!’ Child Star Dead At 60

Former child actress Danielle Spencer, best known for starring as Dee Thomas in the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!!, has passed away. She was 60 years old.

Spencer’s passing was announced by her What’s Happening!! co-star Haywood Nelson, who remembered her as a “brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior.”

The actress reportedly passed after a long battle with cancer in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, according to Nelson’s statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

“We have lost a daughter, sister, family member, “What’s Happening” cast member, veterinarian animal rights proponent and healer, and cancer heroine. Our Shero. Danielle is loved. She will be missed in this form and forever embraced,” Nelson wrote of the actress on social media.

Spencer and Nelson starred together on the groundbreaking sitcom What’s Happening!! which followed a trio of Black teenagers – played by Nelson, Ernest Thomas, and Fred Berry – learning the lessons of life while growing up in an inner city. Spencer starred as Dee Thomas, the wise-cracking younger sister to Roger “Raj” Thomas who became known for her catchphrase, “Ooooh, I’m gonna tell mama!”

The ABC sitcom, which was loosely based on Cooley High, ran from 1976 to 1979 before returning with the sequel What’s Happening Now!! from 1985 to 1988.

While starring on the show, Spencer and her stepfather, Tim Pelt, were involved in a five-car accident in Malibu that resulted in Pelt’s death and left Spencer in a coma for three weeks, per People.

She wrote of the incident in her 2011 memoir Through The Fire… Journal of a Child Star. “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to my stepfather, Daddy Tim, whom I loved and who taught me show business as a young child in New York,” she wrote, per THR.

Spencer was later diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and underwent a double mastectomy. She also underwent emergency brain surgery in 2018 for a brain bleed.

What’s Happening!! marked the start of her acting career. She also made an appearance on The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and NBC Special Treat. Spencer’s acting career ended in 2001 with an appearance in Days of Our Lives.

Outside of her acting career, Spencer studied at UC Davis and UCLA before receiving her doctorate in veterinary medicine at Tuskegee University in 1993. This led James L. Brooks to hire her to play a veterinarian in the 1997 romcom As Good As It Gets, according to THR.

She was inducted into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2014, becoming the first child actor to be inducted into the Smithsonian Museum.