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Was forced to file bankruptcy in early 1994 due to a $1.7-million debt, and eventually he lost his home in Brentwood, CA, and most of his possessions. He later moved into the Motion Picture and Television Retirement Center in Woodland Hills, a retirement home for actors and other motion picture people, where he stayed for the next three years until his death in June of 1997.

He was a mail courier on the 20th Century-Fox studio lot in 1943 when a casting agent spotted him and signed him for a part in Guadalcanal Diary (1943).

His wife, Antoinette, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease shortly before his death.

Although Jaeckel was battling cancer, director Joe Dante had originally hoped that he would be able to return to work and provide the voice of Link Static for his project Small Soldiers (1998). This film reunited Jaeckel's fellow cast members from The Dirty Dozen (1967). Jaeckel died from his cancer before shooting began.

According to Robert Osborne in "Academy Awards 1972 Oscar Annual," Jaeckel got the role in Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) when Paul Newman ran into him at Malibu Beach. Jaeckel was relaxing and swimming with his family and friends, and as Newman watched him playing with his own children, he thought that Jaeckel would be just right to play his brother in the film. Newman subsequently stood up for casting Jaeckel at later conferences with studio management, and he got the part, and an Oscar nomination.