‘What’s Happening!!’ Turns 50: Who’s Still Alive From the Cast?
Hey, hey, hey — we’ve reached the 50th anniversary of the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!! Debuting on August 5, 1976, the ABC sitcom followed a trio of Black teens in Los Angeles and had universal appeal, as stars Ernest Lee Thomas and Haywood Nelson said on Today in April 2025.
“No matter what race [you are], you got those buddies and friends,” Thomas observed. “You hang out together, you get into mischief. You had the mothers who were very stern. … I had a Jewish lady that said, ‘Boy, you remind me so much of my nephew.’”
Nelson, meanwhile, said viewers connected with the love on screen. “We, among ourselves, in general, we are family. We love each other,” he explained. “The cast loved each other, and that comes through, and I think families could identify with that. Because often, when we’re in the street, people come up to us, and they say, ‘It’s like I know you. We’re family.’ They feel like they are family and friends.”
And those viewers followed What’s Happening!! — which screenwriter Eric Monte created and based loosely on his 1975 film Cooley High — across its three seasons on ABC and returned when the syndicated follow-up What’s Happening Now!! started its three-season run in 1985. Now that the original show is turning 50, continue reading for updates on its cast.
Ernest Lee Thomas (Roger “Raj” Thomas), 76, recently returned to one of his biggest TV parts.
Thomas’ acting career continues: In the last decade, he appeared on the TV shows Workaholics, Veep, and Diarra From Detroit. And after playing Mr. Omar across three seasons of the 2000s sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, Thomas recently reprised the part in several episodes of Comedy Central’s animated series Everybody Still Hates Chris.
Haywood Nelson (Dwayne Nelson), 66, is still working as an actor and producer.
Nelson’s last onscreen acting role came when he and the other two What’s Happening!! leads had cameos in the 2003 comedy film Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. But he’s producing the upcoming films Clash of Titans and Father of Miranda, he’ll return to the screen in the thriller film Deadly Surrogate, and he’s teaming up with Good Times alum Bern Nadette Stanis this fall for the stage production Willie & Esther in Killeen, Texas, as he told KDH News this May.
Mabel King (Mabel “Mama” Thomas) died in 1999.
King, who starred in The Wiz on Broadway before What’s Happening!! and starred in the musical’s film adaptation, died in November 1999 at a hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at age 66, The New York Times reported. She’d been diagnosed with diabetes and had both legs and an arm amputated, according to Jet. Her other screen credits included multiple roles on Fantasy Island and a part as Steve Martin’s onscreen mother in the 1979 comedy film The Jerk.
Shirley Hemphill (Shirley Wilson) died a month after King.
In December 1999, Hemphill was found dead at age 66 at home in West Covina, California, the Associated Press reported, and Jetlisted the cause of death as kidney failure. Hemphill, who also headlined the 1980 ABC sitcom One in a Million, was also a frequent stand-up comic at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood and was “prolific for helping other comedians out,” Nelson told Jet. Rosie O’Donnell told her talk show viewers that Hemphill helped her get a paying job.
Fred Berry (Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs) died in 2003.
Berry died of apparent natural causes at age 52 at home in Los Angeles in October 2003, with friends saying he had recently had a stroke, according to People. The actor, who claimed he spent more than $1 million on drugs, cars, homes, a private plane, reportedly became a Baptist minister later in his life. The year of his death, he played himself in cameos in an episode of Scrubs and in the aforementioned Dickie Roberts.
Danielle Spencer (Dee Thomas) died in 2025.
Spencer died at age 60 in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, in November 2025, as Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter. Following What’s Happening!!, Spencer became a veterinarian in real life and played a fictional one in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets. She was diagnosed with a spinal condition in the 2000s and breast cancer and brain bleeding in the 2010s, according to THR. “She suffered for a very long time but did it with a great deal of courage,” Nelson told the site.
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Was surprised to find out the theme song was by Henry "The Pink Panther" Mancini!
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Loved this show and cast, great memories.
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