Danielle Spencer, the former television star best known for her role as Dee Thomas, the sassy pre-teen from the popular 1970s Black sitcom What’s Happening!!, has died. She was 60.
Spencer died Monday at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia,What’s Happening!! co-star Haywood Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter. He shared an Instagram post about Spencer on Tuesday.
“Brilliance! It comes in a great many forms. We all have them, and we all have this family’s — Dr. Danielle Spencer (June 24, 1965 – August 11, 2025),” Nelson, 65, wrote in the post’s caption.
He continued, “Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior, without fail, has finally found her release from the clutches of this world and a body. We celebrate Danielle Spencer and her contributions as we regret to inform her departure and transition from a long battle with cancer.”
“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 in conclusion.
How Spencer landed her breakout role on What’s Happening!!
Spencer was born on June 24, 1965, and raised in New York City by her mother, Cheryl, a French teacher, and stepfather, actor Tim Pelt. She started acting at age 7 in a repertory company co-founded by Pelt, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Spencer had other uncredited parts before landing a role in What’s Happening!! when she was 11, moving her and her family to California to kickstart her acting career.
Spencer played a sassy youngster on the show, which was based on the 1975 film Cooley High. The series aired on ABC from 1976 to 1979. The What’s Happening!! cast also included Nelson as Dwayne Clemens Nelson, Ernest Thomas as Raj Thomas, the late Fred Berry as Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs, Mabel King as Mabel “Mama” Thomas and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson.
“I had never seen any young Black girl in that type of spotlight, so I didn’t have a reference point in the media as to how to deal with this opportunity,” she told Jet magazine in 2014. “I was from the Bronx, NY. What I did was use my own family as the reference on how to portray my character.”
Spencer reprised her role for the sequel, What’s Happening Now!!, which aired for another three seasons starting in 1985.
Spencer had health issues after a severe car accident
During the second season of the original sitcom, Spencer and Pelt were involved in a severe five-car accident in September 1977, killing Pelt and leaving Spencer with injuries that led to her being in a three-week coma, The New York Post reported.
“I don’t remember the hospital stay. I don’t remember almost that entire period,” Spencer said on an episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now? in 2016. “However, of course it changed my life.”
“I broke my right leg and my right arm. I was in a coma for three weeks. I also broke my pelvis,” Spencer said. “Fortunately for me, I had the whole summer to heal, and I was right back on the show for the final season,” she added.
Years later, she experienced other health issues stemming from her injuries from the car crash. She was paralyzed, but with physical therapy, she was able to walk again. Spencer had decided to choose a different career path after she and her mother moved to Africa, where she enrolled at the University of California, Davis, and studied veterinary medicine.
She also studied at Tuskegee University Veterinary School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and became a veterinarian after graduating, per The New York Post.
In 2014, Spencer was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery for a double mastectomy, and in 2018, she underwent an emergency surgery to relieve bleeding on her brain.
Her marketing consultant, Michael Chisolm, launched a GoFundMe to help raise money to cover her medical expenses.
