{"id":62053,"date":"2025-08-12T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62053\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T17:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:03:07","slug":"danielle-spencer-dead-child-actor-dies-in-hospital-after-cancer-battle-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62053\/","title":{"rendered":"Danielle Spencer dead: Child actor dies in hospital after cancer battle | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Danielle Spencer, who was most known for playing Dee Thomas, on the sitcom What\u2019s Happening!! has died aged 60<\/a>. According to one of her co-stars, who spoke to The Hollywood<\/a> Reporter, Spencer died on Monday in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. \u201cShe suffered for a very long time but did it with a great deal of courage,\u201d Haywood Nelson told the publication. Spencer was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy in 2014. Four years later, she underwent emergency brain surgery to remove a bleeding hematoma that was left undiscovered<\/a> from a car accident back in 1976. The devastating incident happened during What’s Happening’s second season and left her stepfather Tim Pelt dead and left Spencer in a coma for several weeks. At the time, she underwent six months of physical therapy after the crash that left her with a broken arm, leg and pelvis. She underwent six months of physical therapy after the crash that left her with a broken arm, leg and pelvis<\/p>\n

It was announced this week that Spencer had died in hospital, however a cause of death is yet to be shared. Her former co-star Haywood led tributes on Instagram<\/a>, writing: “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.”<\/p>\n

He added: “We have lost a daughter, sister, family member, What\u2019s 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.”<\/p>\n

Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1965, Spencer began acting classes aged seven and was cast in What\u2019s Happening!! four years later.<\/p>\n

However a year after the show began, the actress was involved in the shocking car accident.<\/p>\n

She later developed a spinal condition that left her paralysed from the waist down for months. After the series was cancelled in 1979, Spencer and her mother temporarily relocated to Africa.<\/p>\n

She briefly returned to the small screen as Dee for the sequel of What’s Happening Now!!<\/p>\n

After the spin-off was cancelled in 1988, she then attended Tuskegee University Veterinary School in Tuskegee, Alabama, becoming a veterinarian in 1993.<\/p>\n

While she eventually stepped away from television Spencer did play a vet in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets and appeared in Peter Rabbit and the Crucifix in 2001.<\/p>\n

She also released a book about her life as a child star titled Through the Fire: Journal of a Child Star in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danielle Spencer, who was most known for playing Dee Thomas, on the sitcom What\u2019s Happening!! has died aged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33141,2199,2283,33139,96,59,7444,56,54,55,33140],"class_list":["post-62053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-brain-surgery","tag-breast-cancer","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-danielle-spencer","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-surgery","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-whats-happening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}