If the name Danielle Spencer doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps the name “Dee,” former adorable child star of ’70s classic TV show What’s Happening, is probably more familiar.
Best known for her signature catchphrase, “Oooh, I’m gonna tell my momma!”, Spencer eventually traded the spotlight for the sciences. She stepped away from show business to attend Tuskegee University, where she earned her degree in veterinary medicine and launched a successful career as a veterinarian. In the years before her passing, Dr. Spencer spoke candidly about her personal journey, sharing her courageous battle with breast cancer, paralysis, and clinical depression.
“I knew I wanted to work with animals but I didn’t know in what capacity. But I always loved animals,” confessed Spencer. “They were my closest friends sometimes growing up.
I was so happy to be able to be a veterinarian because I wasn’t doing much acting once the show went off the air. It’s good being able to make a living doing something that I love.”
But her transition from entertainment to animal medicine wasn’t always a smooth one.
In 1977, Spencer was in a car accident that took the life of her stepfather. Symptoms of spinal cord injury showed up 26 years later, eventually leaving her near-paralyzed for about eight months, where she had to learn how to walk again.
Turns out a disc in her back from the 1977 accident had calcified through the decades and was pressing against her nerve. She was informed by her doctor that she would never walk again unless she had an operation to remove the disc.
She stayed out of the tapings for the show for six months and had to initially film several of her What’s Happening scenes sitting down.
Spencer had been suffering from spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column that puts pressure on nerves (doctors believe it could stem from a childhood car accident). Unable to move her legs after surgery to treat the condition, Spencer, then 46, fell into a deep depression as her numbness turned into unmanageable, chronic back pain.
Bolstered by the support of her husband and her mom, Cheryl Pelt, Spencer sought treatment at New Jersey’s Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, which had also treated Christopher Reeve. The veterinarian said the day she was accepted into the program, “the depression lifted.”
If that injury wasn’t enough, Spencer was diagnosed with breast cancer and revealed in 2014 that she was going under the knife to remove the cancer.
Like many women who suffer through breast cancer, Spencer had a family history of the disease.
“With everything that I’ve been through with the spinal cord injury I know God is not going to give me another affliction. So I was completely shocked when the doctors told me,” said Spencer.
In a 2015 Facebook post, Spencer reported that she was doing fine and thanked everyone for their prayers. She was a veterinarian and loved married life with her husband, David.
But don’t worry, her journey through the years isn’t all bad news–she was inducted into the Smithsonian Museum in the exhibition of the African-American culture! Spencer was the only child star to be inducted.
“I still can’t believe it,” she said. “That’s something people can look at for years to come, long after I’m gone.”
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In addition to being a veterinarian, Spencer added the title of author to her name. She released a book about her life in 2013 titled Through The Fire…Journal Of A Child Star.
“I would like for it to be remembered as maybe one of the first shows that allowed people from all generations and racial backgrounds to come together and watch TV at the same time. Before that, it’s been said that white people didn’t watch a lot of the shows Black people were on. But now, we have so many fans of all races that come up to us and say they really enjoyed What’s Happening! and how it reminds them of their childhood. That’s always a good thing when you can be reminded of the things you were raised with.”
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