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What’s Happening!! child star Danielle Spencer died on Aug. 11 at age 60
Her death was announced by her former costar Haywood Nelson, who shared, “Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior, without fail, has finally found her release from the clutches of this world and a body”
Spencer starred as Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!! in the 1970s
Danielle Spencer, who was best known for playing the role of Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!!, has died. She was 60.
Spencer died on Aug. 11, according to an Instagram post from her former What’s Happening!! costar Haywood Nelson.
“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),” shared Nelson, who played Dwayne Nelson on the ABC sitcom.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
L-R: DANIELLE SPENCER; HAYWOOD NELSON; FRED BERRY; ERNEST THOMAS; MABEL KING
“Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior, without fail, has finally found her release from the clutches of this world and a body,” he added. “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.”
A cause of death has not been announced.
PEOPLE has reached out to a representative for Spencer for comment.
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Spencer starred as precocious little sister Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!! — which was loosely based on the 1975 film Cooley High — for three seasons from 1976 to 1979.
During the sitcom’s second season, Spencer and her stepfather, Tim Pelt, were in a severe car accident on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Calif., which resulted in Pelt’s death and left her in a three-week coma.
Spencer opened up about the impact of the accident in her 2011 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,” she shared of Pelt, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Bobby Bank/WireImage
Danielle Spencer attends the 2016 Chiller Theater Expo at Parsippany Hilton on April 22, 2016 in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Spencer was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and underwent emergency surgery for brain bleed in 2018.
“Exactly 42 years to the date of her major car accident in 1976 resulting in the untimely death of her stepfather, actor Tim Pelt and leaving her in a coma for three weeks, a broken leg, arm and pelvis, Dr. Danielle Spencer started experiencing massive debilitating headaches. After going back and forth to the doctor for medicine, the headaches persisted until last week when she became unconscious. These headaches left her unresponsive and caused her to almost succumb to her illness. With quick action from expert doctors, they did emergency brain surgery removing a bleeding hematoma that formed due to the car accident 42 years ago,” a GoFundMe page for her medical expenses stated.
She was also diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2004, which caused her to become briefly paralyzed.
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Spencer reprised her role as Dee in What’s Happening Now!! from 1985 to 1988. She also appeared on The Brady Bunch Special, Christmas at Walt Disney World, The Tap Dance Kid, The Family Feud and Soul Train.
After the show wrapped, Spencer and her mother spent time in Africa before she enrolled at the University of California, Davis, and studied veterinary medicine.
She also attended Tuskegee University Veterinary School in Alabama, where she earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine in 1993.
Spencer’s last acting role was a 2001 episode of Days of Our Lives, on which she played a Salem Place Vender.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
Actress Danielle Spencer from the TV show ‘What’s Happening!!’ poses for a photo in November 1976 in Los Angeles, California
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Spencer became the first child star to be inducted into the Smithsonian Museum. She is part of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, according to ABC News.
“I still can’t believe it,” she told the outlet in 2014. “That’s something people can look at for years to come, long after I’m gone.”
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