Actress Danielle Spencer from the TV show 'What's Happening!!' poses for a photo in November 1976 in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Danielle Spencer, the former child star known for the role on the ABC sitcom "What’s Happening!!," has died. She was 60 years old.
The passing was confirmed in a post on Instagram by her friend and former co-star Haywood Nelson.
Danielle Spencer dies, known for ABC sitcom ‘What’s Happening!!’
Nelson said Tuesday that Spencer died after a long battle with cancer.
What they're saying:
"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)," Nelson wrote on Instagram. "Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior, without fail, has finally found her release from the clutches of this world and a body."
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He continued: "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."
Danielle Spencer’s legacy
Dig deeper:
The sitcom "What’s Happening!!" ran on ABC from 1976 to 1979, with Spencer reprising her iconic role in the '80s spin-off 'What’s Happening Now!!".
The show, set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and among the first on television to focus on the lives of Black teenagers, was based on the movie "Cooley High.". 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.
Early in the production of the show's 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.
She left the Hollywood spotlight in the 1990s to become a veterinarian.
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.
The Source: The information for this story was provided by Haywood Nelson’s Instagram account. This story was reported from Los Angeles. TMZ contributed.