Overview

• Danielle Spencer died on August 11 at age 60 in a Richmond, Virginia, hospital, as announced by former co-star Haywood Nelson on Instagram.
• Family spokesperson Sandra Jones confirmed that gastric cancer and cardiac arrest were the immediate causes of her death.
• Spencer gained fame as Dee Thomas on ABC’s sitcom What’s Happening!! from 1976 to 1979 and reprised the role on What’s Happening Now!! in the mid-1980s.
• After leaving acting, she earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tuskegee University in 1993 and practiced as a veterinarian for decades, earning induction into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2014.
• Her life was marked by a 1977 car accident that killed her stepfather, multiple health battles—including breast cancer and emergency brain surgery—and a GoFundMe page remains active to support her medical expenses.