Iconic child star Danielle Spencer has died aged 60.
Spencer, best known for her role as the sassy Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!! which ran from 1976-1979, passed away on Monday, August 11, after a battle with breast cancer.
Her former co-star Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne Clemens Nelson on the ABC show, confirmed her death in an emotional tribute.
He wrote: ‘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).
‘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.’
Iconic What’s Happening!! child star Danielle Spencer has died aged 60
Spencer, best known for her role as the sassy Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!! which ran from 1976-1979, passed away on Monday, August 11, after a battle with cancer – pictured February 2025 in one of her final public outings
As Dee, the sister of Raj Thomas (Ernest Thomas) and daughter of Mabel (Mabel King), she was known for her signature phrase, ‘Oooh I’m gonna tell mama!’
She later reprised her role for the show’s sequel What’s Happening Now! which aired for three seasons between 1985-1988.
In 19977 aged just 12 Spencer was involved in a five car crash in Malibu that killed her stepfather Tim Pelt and left her in intensive care for three weeks with a a broken leg, arm and pelvis.
She wrote in her 2010 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.’
In 2004, she was diagnosed with spinal stenosis – a condition where the spinal canal narrows, putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerves – as a result of her injuries from the 1977 car accident.
A surgery left her partially paralyzed for eight months.
Spencer became a veterinarian in 1996 and the following year art imitated life when she played one in As Good As It Gets.
In 2014 she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
As Dee, the sister of Raj Thomas (Ernest Thomas) and daughter of Mabel (Mabel King), she was known for her signature phrase, ‘Oooh I’m gonna tell mama!’ – pictured with Fred ‘Rerun’ Berry, Haywood Nelson and Ernest Thomas in 1979
Her former co-star Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne Clemens Nelson on the ABC show, confirmed her death in an emotional tribute
‘With everything that I’ve been through with the spinal cord injury, I know God is not going to give me another affliction.
‘So I was completely shocked when the doctors told me.’
In 2015 she became the only child star to be inducted into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
