LOS ANGELES (AP) — Danielle Spencer, who played the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the 1970s sitcom “What's Happening!!” has died at 60.
Spencer, who became a veterinarian later in life, died Monday at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, after a yearslong battle with cancer, family spokesperson Sandra Jones said.
As Dee, Spencer was the smarter, more serious younger sister who offered a steady stream of deadpan roasts of big brother Roger “Raj” Thomas and his friends Dwayne Nelson and Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs.
“Ooh, I’m gonna tell mama,” would become Dee's catchphrase.
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” and ran on ABC from 1976 to 1979. 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.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Spencer began acting when she was about 9. “What's Happening!!” would be her first credited role.
“Imagine being plucked from obscurity to star in a TV show,” she told Jet magazine in 2014. “I had never seen any young Black girl in that type of spotlight, so I didn’t have a reference point in the media as to how to deal with this opportunity. I was from the Bronx.”
Haywood Nelson, who played Dwayne on the show, paid tribute Tuesday to “Dr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior.”
“We have lost a daughter, sister, family member, ‘What’s Happening’ cast member, veterinarian animal rights proponent and healer, and cancer heroine. Our Shero,” Nelson said on Instagram. “Danielle is loved.”
Spencer also appeared on a mid-1980s reboot of the show, “What’s Happening Now!!,” which ran for three seasons.
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.
She went on to become a veterinarian and advocate for animals. She attended the University of California, Davis, and UCLA, and got a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tuskegee University in 1993.
Spencer continued to dabble in acting in her later years, including an appearance as a veterinarian in the 1997 Jack Nicholson film “As Good as it Gets.”
She is survived by her brother, musician Jeremy Pelt, and her mother, Cheryl Pelt.
Danielle Spencer, left, and Cheryl Pelt rest at home in Malibu, Calif. after Spencer's release from Santa Monica Hospital on Friday, Sept. 16, 1977. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
