By Bianca Sierra
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Danielle Spencer (June 24, 1965 – August 11, 2025) was an American actress and child actress best known for her role as Dee Thomas on the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!!, which ran from 1976 until 1979. She would later reprise the role on the series’ sequel, What’s Happening Now!! After her acting career, Spencer became a veterinarian.
In 2014, Spencer was inducted as part of the permanent exhibition of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. She is the only former child actor who holds this honor. She also became involved in fashion design and debuted her “Dani Collection” line, which was patterned after her own style of dress.
Spencer married Garry Fields, a marketing manager and her publicist and manager, in Marina Del Rey, California, in 1999. The couple divorced in 2013. In 2014, Spencer married David L. David, an entrepreneur from New Jersey she was introduced to by Ernest Lee Thomas.
Spencer was a veterinarian, initially in Santa Clarita, California, before moving to Richmond, Virginia, in 2014, to be closer to family. In Richmond, she hosted segments about pet care for morning newscasts on WTVR-TV. Spencer earned her doctorate degree in veterinary medicine in 1993 from Tuskegee University Veterinary School in Alabama.
Spencer died of cancer at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, on August 11, 2025, at the age of 60.
