She survived a horrific auto accident during the sitcom’s second season and went on to become a veterinarian.
By Mike BarnesPlus Icon
Danielle Spencer, who played the precocious youngster Dee Thomas on the 1970s ABC sitcom What’s Happening!!, has died. She was 60.
Spencer died Monday in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, her What’s Happening!! co-star Haywood Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy in 2014 and in 2018 underwent emergency surgery to relieve bleeding on her brain. A GoFundMe page was set up to help her pay for her medical expenses.
“She suffered for a very long time but did it with a great deal of courage,” Nelson said.o-produced by All in the Family‘s Bud Yorkin, What’s Happening!! was loosely based on the 1975 film Cooley High (Eric Monte wrote the movie screenplay and created the Watts-based sitcom). After a successful four-week run that started in August 1976, the comedy returned in November of that year and then for another two seasons.
Spencer played Dee, the smart-aleck younger sister of Roger “Raj” Thomas (Ernest Thomas) and daughter of Mabel (Mabel King), and she became known for her catch phrase, “Ooooh, I’m gonna tell Mama!” Nelson portrayed the down-to-earth Dwayne on the show.She reprised the role for the sequel What’s Happening Now!, which aired for another three seasons starting in 1985.
Spencer went on to became a veterinarian in 1993, and James L. Brooks hired her to play one in his 1997 film, As Good as It Gets. “She had a great love of animals, she was like Betty White in that way,” Nelson said.
Born on June 24, 1965, and raised in New York City by her mother, Cheryl, a French teacher, and stepfather, actor Tim Pelt, Danielle Luise Spencer started acting at age 7 in a repertory company co-founded by Pelt.