Danielle Spencer, who portrayed the witty and tattling younger sister Dee Thomas on the comedy What’s Happening! in the 1970s, passed away at the age of 60.
According to family spokesperson Sandra Jones, Spencer, who eventually became a veterinarian, passed away on Monday at a Richmond, Virginia, hospital following a protracted fight with cancer.
Spencer played the role of Dee, the more intelligent and somber younger sister who provided a constant supply of sardonic jabs at big brother Roger “Raj” Thomas and his pals Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs and Dwayne Nelson.
Dee would eventually adopt the remark, “Ooh, I’m gonna tell mama,” as her signature.
Based on the film Coolie High, the television series, which aired on ABC from 1976 to 1979, was one of the first to focus on the lives of Black youths and was set in the Watts district of Los Angeles. Its iconic characters, such as the nerdy Raj, the catchphrase-gushing Dwayne, the red-bereted dance sensation Rerun, and Dee with her chilly look and eye rolls, contributed to its lengthy reputation.
Spencer was 12 years old when she was involved in a serious vehicle accident on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, early in the first season of the show. The accident killed her stepfather, Tim Pelt, and put Spencer in a coma for three weeks. In the years that followed, she would need numerous surgery due to neurological and spinal issues.
Spencer, who was reared in New York after being born in Trenton, New Jersey, started acting at the age of nine.Her first credited role would be in What’s Happening!!.
In 2014, she told Jet magazine, “Imagine being pulled out of obscurity to star in a TV show.” “I had no media point of reference for how to handle this situation since I had never seen any young Black girl in that kind of spotlight. My hometown was the Bronx.
On Tuesday, Haywood Nelson, who portrayed Dwayne in the series, honored “Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior.”
“We have lost a sister, daughter, family member, cast member of ‘What’s Happening,’ veterinarian, healer, advocate for animal rights, and cancer heroine. Nelson posted on Instagram, “Our Shero.” “Danielle is loved.”
Spencer also starred in a three-season revival of the show What’s Happening Now! in the middle of the 1980s.
She underwent emergency surgery in 2018 to treat a bleeding hematoma from the 1977 vehicle accident. According to a family spokesperson, she was unable to speak much and had to walk with crutches in the early aftermath. Her symptoms began at least in 2004, when she had to relearn how to walk and use a wheelchair. She underwent a double mastectomy after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis in 2014.
She later became an animal advocate and doctor. After attending UCLA and the University of California, Davis, she graduated from Tuskegee University in 1993 with a PhD in veterinary medicine.
In her latter years, Spencer kept trying her hand at acting, even making an appearance as a veterinarian in the 1997 Jack Nicholson movie As Good as it Gets.
Her mother, Cheryl Pelt, and brother, musician Jeremy Pelt, survive her.
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