AP
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Danielle Spencer, who played the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the Seventies sitcom “What’s Happening!!” has died.
Spencer died Monday at age 60 after a yearslong battle with most cancers, household spokesperson Sandra Jones mentioned.
As Dee, Spencer was the smarter, extra critical youthful sister who supplied a gradual stream of deadpan roasts of massive brother Roger “Raj” Thomas and his buddies Dwayne Nelson and Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs.
“Ooh, I’m gonna tell mama,” would turn out to be Dee’s catchphrase.
The present, set within the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and among the many first on television to focus on the lives of Black teenagers, was based mostly on the film “Cooley High” and ran on ABC from 1976 to 1979. It had an extended legacy because of its memorable characters, together with the geeky Raj, the catchphrase-spouting Dwayne, the red-bereted dancing phenom Rerun, and Dee together with her eyerolls and icy stare.
Early within the manufacturing of the present’s first season, Spencer, then 12, was in a serious automotive accident on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, that left her in a coma for 3 weeks and killed her stepfather, Tim Pelt. She would have spinal and neurological issues that might require a number of surgical procedures within the years afterward.
In 2018, she had emergency surgical procedure for a bleeding hematoma, which stemmed from that 1977 automotive crash. In the speedy aftermath, a household spokesperson mentioned she might solely converse barely and had to make use of crutches to stroll. She had been struggling signs from at least 2004, when she had to make use of a wheelchair and relearn the right way to stroll. In 2014, she was recognized with breast most cancers and had a double mastectomy.
Spencer additionally appeared on a mid-Nineteen Eighties reboot of the present, “What’s Happening Now!!,” which ran for 3 seasons.
She went on to turn out to be a veterinarian and advocate for animals. She attended the University of California, Davis, and UCLA, and received a doctorate in veterinary medication from Tuskegee University in 1993.
Spencer continued to dabble in performing, together with an look as a veterinarian within the 1997 Jack Nicholson movie “As Good as it Gets.”