What's Happening!! Actors You May Not Know Passed Away

It's easy to forget, but it wasn't so long ago that television was almost exclusively white, with most sitcoms and TV shows using Black actors only in supporting roles. That would change throughout the 1970s, with classics like "Good Times" and "Sanford and Son" altering the face of television and proving that Black sitcoms could be bonafide hits. In 1976, "Good Times" creator Eric Monte launched "What's Happening!!," which, despite its mere three-season run, became an all-time classic.

While most shows of the era were focused on adult couples raising families, "What's Happening!!" revolved around a group of teens who were always getting into some misadventure or another. The series centered on brother and sister Roger and Dee Thomas and their mother Mabel, with neighborhood friends Rerun and Dwayne always tagging along.

Most of the cast were the same age as their characters, and the series was a rare show that featured a young, all-Black cast. Most of them would return in the mid-1980s for a sequel series, "What's Happening Now!!," and many count their roles in the series as the biggest in their careers. Despite most of the actors being very young, though, the show has seen many of its biggest stars pass on in the decades since its debut.

Like many in the supporting cast of "What's Happening!!," actor Thalma Rasulala was a well-traveled character actor throughout his career. Playing Bill Thomas in "What's Happening!!" was one of his biggest recurring roles. Thomas, of course, is the father of Roger 'Raj' Thomas (Ernest Thomas) and Deadra "Dee" Thomas (Danielle Spencer), which also makes him the ex-husband of Mabel (Mabel King), and there's no love lost between them. He walked out on the family years before, and is always up to some kind of scheme whenever he shows up.

Outside of "What's Happening!!," Rasulala guest-starred on a number of TV classics, with single-episode roles in all-time greats like "Perry Mason" in the 1960s, "Good Times," "Sanford and Son," and "All in the Family" in the 1970s, and "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "T.J. Hooker," and "Cagney & Lacey" in the 1980s. He also appeared in plenty of big-screen favorites that range from blaxploitation legend "Blacula" in 1971 to action movies like "Above the Law" the next decade.

Shortly before his passing, Rasulala had regular roles on "Dragnet," where he played Captain Boltz, and the soap opera "General Hospital." He died of a heart attack in 1991, aged 55.

If you're a fan of 1970s television, you're probably familiar with Fritzi Burr. She popped up in many of the best small-screen dramas that decade, including "Starsky & Hutch," "Baretta," "The Rockford Files," and "The Incredible Hulk." She even had a small part in the short-lived, awful cop show you forgot about, "Holmes & Yoyo." Burr appeared in 10 episodes of "Sanford and Son," where she surprisingly played a whopping nine different characters.

On "What's Happening!!," Burr played the role of Miss Collins, the sardonic and often sarcastic history teacher. A Philadelphia native, Burr got her start in the stand-up comedy scene, where she worked for some two decades before she even headed to Hollywood and made her screen debut in a 1967 episode of the police drama "N.Y.P.D." Following her run on "What's Happening!!," Burr could be seen in episodes of "The Golden Girls" and "Moonlighting" in the 1980s, and she continued acting well into the 1990s. That decade, she added "Friends," "Mad About You," and "The Nanny" to her resume, while she also played the mahjong lady in the "Seinfeld" episode "The Handicap Spot."

On the movie side of her career, Burr had a small role in "Chinatown," but her bigger career was in theater: She earned high marks for her role as Yente in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Once Upon a Mattress" and the 1967 Broadway production of "Funny Girl."  She passed away in 2003 at the age of 78.

The stalwart parental figure on "What's Happening!!," actress Mabel King played Mabel Thomas, better known simply as "Mama." Loving and supportive, Mama could also be a little domineering, but only because she loved the kids so much, wanting to protect them and make sure they never got into trouble (which, of course, they always did). Despite playing one of the biggest characters on "What's Happening!!" in the 1970s, Mabel King might have had an even bigger career in film.

Fans of '80s comedies will no doubt remember King for small but iconic roles in a number of classics. In 1983, she starred alongside Steve Martin in "The Jerk," playing Mama Johnson, a role she returned to for the small-screen sequel, "The Jerk, Too." She had a small role as a TV mother in Bill Murray's "Scrooged" in 1988, and a decade earlier had was part of the all-star cast of the "Wizard of Oz" reimagining "The Wiz" alongside musical heavyweights Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Nipsey Russell, and Lena Horne. There she played Evilinne, the film's version of the Wicked Witch.

Back on television, though, "What's Happening!!" wasn't her only work on a small-screen hit. She also made appearances in sitcoms like "Barney Miller," "Fantasy Island," and "The Jeffersons," usually playing a similar character to Mama, even if it was just for one episode. Despite being somewhat typecast, King had a long and celebrated career. Sadly, she suffered from severe diabetes late in life, losing both legs to the disease. She died in 1999 at the age of 66.

Among the cast of "What's Happening!!," you'll find that many also appeared on the series "Good Times," owing to the fact that producer Eric Monte created both shows. Shirley Hemphill is one such actor, appearing on "Good Times" in a 1976 episode as one of her very first roles before quickly being cast as a series regular on "What's Happening!!" later that same year. She went on to appear in nearly every episode as smart-mouthed waitress Shirley Wilson.

Hemphill has a classic story of being discovered that could have only happened in the 1970s: She was working a day job as a receptionist and became known for her wild sense of humor. At the suggestion of a friend, Hemphill sent a tape of her comedy routine to TV star Flip Wilson, who immediately invited her to the set of "The Flip Wilson Show." From there, Hemphill moved to Los Angeles, started doing stand-up comedy, and within a few short years, she was starring in a major network series.

In the 1980s, Hemphill returned for "What's Happening, Now!!," but outside of a handful of additional TV guest appearances, she didn't do much else on the screen. She did, however, get a short-lived show of her own in between: "One in a Million." She died in 1999 of kidney failure at 52 years old.

"What's Happening!!" had its share of prominent guest stars, big names who dropped in for a single episode — or in the case of Wolfman Jack, two. Born Robert Weston Smith, Wolfman Jack was one of the biggest disc jockeys on the airwaves in the 1970s, alongside all-time greats like Casey Kasem and Dr. Demento. Over the course of his decades-long career, Jack made numerous appearances on TV and film, usually as himself, or a fictional disc jockey, as he did in two different episodes of "What's Happening!!"

In his first appearance in "My Three Sons," he played an unnamed emcee, but he later played himself, serving as a celebrity judge in the episode "Going, Going, Gong," where the kids visit "The Gong Show." Outside of "What's Happening!!," Wolfman Jack showed up in such classics as "American Graffiti," while also appearing on too many TV shows to count. Some of the most notable include "The Odd Couple" and "The New Gidget," as well as playing the villainous Infra Red in an episode of "Wonder Woman."

Notable, of course, is that Wolfman Jack had his own short-lived TV series in 1980, while he was also the narrator of one of the "Happy Days" spin-offs, "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang." His final on-screen performance as himself was in an episode of "Married... with Children" in 1995. He died that same year of a heart attack at the age of 57.

"What's Happening!!" was a true ensemble series with a strong cast of regulars that were each iconic in their own way. But if the show had a single star, it was probably Fred Berry, who played the ever-affable Freddy Stubbs, better known to everyone in the pop culture sphere as "Rerun." The jolly young Rerun was known for his brightly colored red beret and signature suspenders, but also his ebullient smile that could light up a room.

At the height of "What's Happening!!'s" success, Berry was a huge TV star, so it might be somewhat surprising to learn that he really never did much beyond that series. Possibly due to typecasting, Berry rarely found himself playing anyone but himself, and on a few occasions even reprised his role as Rerun in other places, such as in a 1977 episode of "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" and two projects with Snoop Dogg in the 1990s. He played himself in a 1993 episode of the Martin Lawrence sitcom "Martin," and one of his final appearances was in a 2003 episode of "Scrubs," also as himself. In 2003, Berry suffered a fatal stroke, and died at the age of 52.

In "What's Happening!!," Danielle Spencer was the youngster of the group, playing little Dee Thomas. She was just 11 years old when the series debuted, and even though the show aired for just three seasons, Spencer grew up in real time in America's living room, going from a child to a teenager during its run. She returned in the '80s to lead the cast of "What's Happening, Now!!," so fans also got to see her become a fully grown woman.

What makes Spencer unique among the cast of "What's Happening!!," though, is that her role as Dee Thomas was essentially the only role she played for her entire career. Following the end of "What's Happening, Now!!," Spencer all but retired from acting and went back to school to become a doctor. Following time with her mother in Africa, Spencer attended the University of California, Davis for veterinary medicine, and later received a doctorate in the same field in 1993 from the Tuskegee University Veterinary School in Alabama.

In 1997, Spencer returned to acting for a small role in the Jack Nicholson film "As Good as it Gets," where she played a veterinarian. In 2014, Spencer was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she passed away from the disease in August 2025, aged 60.

Actor Ray Vitte made a few guest appearances in "What's Happening!!," and had quite a career going for him in the late '70s. He made his screen debut in 1973 in an episode of "Kojak," and continued with appearances in "Starsky and Hutch," "Police Story," and "Sanford and Son" before getting the call for "What's Happening!!" Between then and his last role in 1982, Vitte did a number of movies, too, appearing in Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke" and the classic 1980 workplace comedy "9 to 5" (which received a forgotten TV spin-off).

His final role came as a series regular on the short-lived single-season adventure series "Quest." That role came to a sudden end with Vitte's tragic death earlier the following same year, and it's one of the more shocking Hollywood deaths of the '80s, as he lost his life in a scuffle with police officers. The police had been called after noise complaints by neighbors on the evening of February 20th, but when they arrived, Vitte responded by allegedly placing a curse upon the officers. After an altercation that saw the use of nightsticks and pepper spray, Vitte was taken into custody, but was found unresponsive in the back of the officer's patrol car while being transported to a hospital for medical evaluation.

Though the incident sparked immediate questions about police conduct, an autopsy ultimately revealed that Vitte had died of a heart attack. He was just 33 at the time of his passing.

Like "What's Happening!!" star Mabel King, actress Helen Martin often played the same role no matter where she appeared. But instead of the kindly mother type, as in King's case, Martin was the sweet old grandmother type. In "What's Happening!!," she appeared as Millie in the very first pair of episodes. She returned in the third season episode "The Benefit Show," playing an old woman named Miss Floyd, who tries to enter her bilingual parrot into a talent competition.

In addition to "What's Happening," Martin was all over TV and film, in some of the day's biggest shows and movies. Earlier, she'd been a recurring character, Wanda Williams (the Weeping Wanda Williams, that is), on "Good Times," and had a regular role in the forgotten sitcom "Baby... I'm Back!" Of course, fans probably know Martin best for her time as Pearl Shay on the '80s sitcom "227," where she appeared in every episode of the show's five seasons, starring alongside Marla Gibbs, Paul Winfield, and a young Regina King (who made her directorial debut in "One Night in Miami" in 2020).

Born in 1909, Martin was a stage actor for decades before making the transition to film and television. Her first role was in a 1955 episode of "The Phenix City Story." Remarkably, she continued acting into her 80s, notably playing the grandmother of Morgan Freeman's Alex Cross in the 1997 film "Kiss the Girls." Her final role came in 2000's "Something to Sing About," filmed shortly before her passing at the age of 90.

The 1970s were full of great Black sitcom stars, from Redd Fox to Fred Berry. A few years before "What's Happening!!," actor Teddy Wilson became another, with his role as mailman Earl Chambers on the 1974 sitcom "That's My Mama" with Clifton Davis and Theresa Merritt. He also had a series of smaller recurring roles afterward, on classic shows like "Good Times," "Crazy Like a Fox," "Alien Nation," and "The Redd Foxx Show."

On "What's Happening!!," Wilson appeared as a guest star in four different episodes, playing three different characters. Most notably, he shows up in the classic two-part episode "Doobie or Not Doobie," playing the scheming Al Dunbar, who tries to convince the kids to bootleg a recording of a Doobie Brothers concert. 

Wilson continued acting into the 1990s, showing up in episodes of "Quantum Leap" and "Wings." In 1991, Wilson suffered a fatal stroke and died at the age of 47. He had one more posthumous release, with the 1993 crime drama "Blood In, Blood Out" winding up his last on-screen role.

Like any great sitcom, "What's Happening!!" had its share of big name celebrity cameos, from Wolfman Jack to the Doobie Brothers. Often they'd play some kind of eccentric guest character, and that's precisely what happened in the Season 2 episode "Diplomatic Immunity" when big screen legend Jeff Corey made an appearance as a visiting foreign dignitary from the Middle East named Hassan. In the story, the kids get into a car accident with Hassan's son, setting off a classic "What's Happening!!" misadventure.

Of course, movie buffs will recognize Corey from a couple of classic Westerns: He was the villainous Tom Chaney in the John Wayne film "True Grit" and Sheriff Bledsoe in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." He's also well known to science fiction fans, since he played Plasus in the original "Star Trek" series episode "The Cloud Minders" and was the human scientist Caspay in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (the sequel to one of the best sci-fi movies of the '70s). In addition to these roles, he voiced Silvermane in "Spider-Man: The Animated Series."

A Hollywood legend, Corey had as prolific a career as one can imagine. Yet it could have been even greater if he had not been blacklist in the 1950s after he refused to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the height of McCarthy's Red Scare. Corey was also a legendary acting teacher, and counted the likes of James Dean, Jane Fonda, Leonard Nimoy, Robin Williams, Penny Marshal, and Jack Nicholson among his students. He died at 88 years old in 2002.

If you don't know the name Greg Morris, then it's clear you're not a fan of '70s television. Between 1967 and 1973, Morris was the star of one of TV's biggest action dramas, "Mission: Impossible." The TV series that decades later launched one of Hollywood's biggest movie franchises, "Mission: Impossible" had Morris acting alongside Peter Graves, Martin Laundau, Barbara Bain, Leonard Nimoy, and a young Sam Elliot.

Just a few years after the end of "Mission: Impossible," Morris snagged a recurring role on "What's Happening!!," playing the father of Dwayne Nelson (Heywood Nelson). Around the same time, he also starred in the "Sanford and Son" spin-off "Sanford Arms," alongside fellow "What's Happening!!" guest star Teddy Wilson. Not long after, he was among the starring cast of the 1978 series "Vega$" with Robert Urich, and had a role in the TV movie "The Jesse Owens Story" with Dorian Harewood.

Morris returned to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise in the 1980s with a role in the sequel series, which was also titled "Mission: Impossible." His son Phil Morris was the lead of the show, playing Greg Morris' on-screen son, and the younger Morris went on to have a celebrated career in his own right. Later in life, the elder Morris struggled with alcoholism and two different types of cancer. He died in 1996 at the age of 62.