{"id":78119,"date":"2025-08-12T21:48:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T21:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78119\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T21:48:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T21:48:02","slug":"danielle-spencer-beloved-whats-happening-star-dies-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78119\/","title":{"rendered":"Danielle Spencer, beloved ‘What’s Happening!!’ star, dies at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Danielle Spencer,<\/a> who played the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the 1970s sitcom \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d has died at 60. <\/p>\n

Spencer, who became a veterinarian later in life, died Monday at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, after a yearslong battle with cancer, family spokesperson Sandra Jones said.<\/p>\n

As Dee, Spencer was the smarter, more serious younger sister who offered a steady stream of deadpan roasts of big brother Roger \u201cRaj\u201d Thomas and his friends Dwayne Nelson and Freddie \u201cRerun\u201d Stubbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOoh, I\u2019m gonna tell mama,\u201d would become Dee\u2019s catchphrase. <\/p>\n

The show, set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and among the first on television to focus on the lives of Black teenagers,<\/a> was based on the movie \u201cCooley High\u201d and ran on ABC from 1976 to 1979. It had a long legacy thanks to its memorable characters, including the geeky Raj, the catchphrase-spouting Dwayne, the red-bereted dancing phenom Rerun, and Dee with her eyerolls and icy stare.<\/p>\n

Early in the production of the show\u2019s first season, Spencer, then 12, was in a major car accident on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, that left her in a coma for three weeks and killed her stepfather, Tim Pelt. She would have spinal and neurological problems that would require multiple surgeries in the years afterward.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Meryl<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Spencer began acting when she was about 9. \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d would be her first credited role. <\/p>\n

\u201cImagine being plucked from obscurity to star in a TV show,\u201d she told Jet magazine in 2014. \u201cI had never seen any young Black girl in that type of spotlight, so I didn\u2019t have a reference point in the media as to how to deal with this opportunity. I was from the Bronx.\u201d <\/p>\n

Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne on the show, paid tribute Tuesday to \u201cDr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have lost a daughter, sister, family member, \u2018What\u2019s Happening\u2019 cast member, veterinarian animal rights proponent and healer, and cancer heroine. Our Shero,\u201d Nelson said on Instagram. \u201cDanielle is loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer also appeared on a mid-1980s reboot of the show, \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening Now!!,\u201d which ran for three seasons. <\/p>\n

In 2018, she had emergency surgery for a bleeding hematoma, which stemmed from that 1977 car crash. In the immediate aftermath, a family spokesperson said she could only speak slightly and had to use crutches to walk. She had been suffering symptoms from at least 2004, when she had to use a wheelchair and relearn how to walk. In 2014, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. <\/p>\n

She went on to become a veterinarian and advocate for animals. She attended the University of California, Davis, and UCLA, and got a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tuskegee University in 1993. <\/p>\n

Spencer continued to dabble in acting in her later years, including an appearance as a veterinarian in the 1997 Jack Nicholson film \u201cAs Good as it Gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is survived by her brother, musician Jeremy Pelt, and her mother, Cheryl Pelt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Danielle Spencer, who played the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2356,7569,55168,54814,88,49118,55170,3031,3509,55171,55169,55167,5148],"class_list":["post-78119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-california","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-cheryl-pelt","tag-danielle-spencer","tag-entertainment","tag-jack-nicholson","tag-jeremy-pelt","tag-los-angeles","tag-notable-deaths","tag-sandra-jones","tag-tim-pelt","tag-veterinary-medicine","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}