Danielle Spencer, who portrayed enthusiastic child Dee Thomas on the ABC sitcom What's Happening!! in the 1970s, died at the age of 60.
Haywood Nelson, her What's Happening! co-star, informed The Hollywood Reporter that Spencer passed away on Monday in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
She had a double mastectomy in 2014 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Spencer also underwent emergency surgery in 2018 to avert cerebral hemorrhage. A GoFundMe site was established to assist her in covering her medical costs.
“We have lost a daughter, sister, family member, What’s Happening cast member, veterinarian, animal rights proponent and healer, and cancer heroine,” Nelson wrote on Instagram. “Our Shero. Danielle is loved. She will be missed in this form and forever embraced.”
Nelson mentioned that Spencer “suffered for a very long time but did it with a great deal of courage.”
All we know about Spencer's character in What's Happening!!
What's Happening!! was co-produced by Bud Yorkin of All in the Family and was based partially on the 1975 movie Cooley High. In August 1976, the comedy began a successful four-week run, and it returned in November of the same year, followed by two more seasons.
{{/usCountry}}What's Happening!! was co-produced by Bud Yorkin of All in the Family and was based partially on the 1975 movie Cooley High. In August 1976, the comedy began a successful four-week run, and it returned in November of the same year, followed by two more seasons.
{{/usCountry}}Spencer's character, Dee, was popularized by her catchphrase, “Ooooh, I'm gonna tell Mama!” She was the younger sister of Roger “Raj” Thomas (Ernest Thomas) and the daughter of Mabel (Mabel King). Nelson played the show's straightforward Dwayne.
In 1985, she returned to the role in the follow-up series What's Happening Now!, which ran for three more seasons.
After becoming a veterinarian in 1993, Spencer was cast as one in James L. Brooks' 1997 movie As Good as It Gets. Nelson remarked, “She had a great love of animals, she was like Betty White in that way.”
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Who was Danielle Luise Spencer?
Danielle Luise Spencer, born on June 24, 1965, was brought up in New York City by her stepfather, actor Tim Pelt, and mother, Cheryl, a French teacher. At the age of seven, she began performing in a repertory group that Pelt co-founded.
Spencer spent weeks in critical care after being engaged in a five-car crash on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu in September 1977, which claimed the life of her stepfather, who was driving, The Hollywood Reporter stated.
Spencer and her family relocated to the Ivory Coast following the cancellation of What's Happening!!. After attending UC Davis and UCLA, she went on to Tuskegee University for veterinary school, where she graduated with a PhD in 1993.
Ten years later, Spencer experienced a spinal disorder that may have been brought on by her car accident, which left her immobile for months from the waist down.