{"id":1956155,"date":"2025-08-12T16:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1956155"},"modified":"2025-08-12T16:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:03:17","slug":"danielle-spencer-whats-happening-actress-dead-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/danielle-spencer-whats-happening-actress-dead-at-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Danielle Spencer, &#8216;What\u2019s Happening!!\u2019 actress, dead at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F08%2F109509503.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Danielle Spencer, the former child star best known for her role in \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d, has died. She was 60.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer\u2019s death <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DNQckc6xVEj\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;ig_rid=582c176a-89a3-42f1-a067-4a0a1da360c0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was announced<\/a> by her co-star Haywood Nelson on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrilliance! It comes in a great many forms. We all have them, and we all have this family\u2019s \u2014 Dr. Danielle Spencer (June 24, 1965 \u2013 August 11, 2025),\u201d Nelson, 65, wrote.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Danielle Spencer. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9Columbia Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cDr. Dee, our brilliant, loving, positive, pragmatic warrior, without fail, has finally found her release from the clutches of this world and a body,\u201d the actor continued. \u201cWe celebrate Danielle Spencer and her contributions as we regret to inform her departure and transition from a long battle with cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Danielle Spencer. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9ABC\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Nelson\u2019s statement added, \u201cWe have lost a daughter, sister, family member, \u2018What\u2019s Happening\u2019 cast member, veterinarian animal rights proponent and healer, and cancer heroine. Our Shero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDanielle is loved. She will be missed in this form and forever embraced,\u201d Nelson said in conclusion.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The cast of \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d <span class=\"credit\">Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Spencer played Dee Thomas, the sassy younger sister of the Thomas family, on \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d, which aired on ABC from 1976 to 1979. The show was loosely based on the 1975 film \u201cCooley High.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The series <\/p>\n<p><em>This story is developing\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Danielle Spencer, the former child star best known for her role in \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening!!\u201d, has died. She was 60. Spencer\u2019s death was announced by her co-star Haywood Nelson on Tuesday. \u201cBrilliance! It comes in a great many forms. We all have them, and we all have this family\u2019s \u2014 Dr. Danielle Spencer (June 24, 1965 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1956156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25538,22062,304719,25601,21741,314121,21913],"class_list":["post-1956155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-actors","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-death","tag-deaths","tag-entertainment","tag-sitcoms","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Danielle-Spencer-Whats-Happening-actress-dead-at-60.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}