‘Frosty the Snowman’ Voice Actor Jackie Vernon Had 3 Secret Families
What To Know
- Jackie Vernon, the voice of Frosty the Snowman, allegedly had three secret families and struggled with drug addiction, according to his son, David.
- David revealed that Jackie had multiple marriages, abandoned previous families, and named all his sons Ralph.
- Jackie Vernon battled depression and addiction to tranquilizers later in life.
Frosty the Snowman voice actor Jackie Vernon allegedly had three secret families and a drug addiction, according to his son, David.
During an interview that aired on Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia on AM 970 The Answer on November 30, David detailed his father’s complex personal life. The revelation that Jackie had multiple secret families came after a woman showed up at David’s doorstep with a kid who was slightly older than he was at the time.
He detailed, “The woman asked to speak to my dad, and I said, you know, my dad’s on the road and he’s not home. Then, I remember she was very firm, she was like, ‘Well then, I want to speak to your mother then.'”
“So my mom came, and I guess she assessed what the situation was right away, but my mom told me to go upstairs and talked to her,” David continued. “But I heard a somewhat heated conversation going on, and then a couple of minutes later, they left. And so I had to know, I asked my mom, ‘Who was that?’ And it finally kind of came out that before our family, my dad had been married at least three other times, which I was kind of shocked to find out.”
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“But he also abandoned all these families, moved on,” David said. “My mom wasn’t even sure if he’d divorced one of the women or if he was married to another one. But when my parents were married, they had a deal.”
He then explained that his mother would name the boys and his father would name the girls.
“She had sort of gotten this idea that a Ralph was an unloved kid, a kid that was left behind, and she wanted to make sure that I was never going to be a Ralph,” David shared. “That’s when I realized that my mom had this plan that he stayed with our family and didn’t abandon us.”
Later in Jackie’s life, David said his dad also struggled with depression and addiction.
“His addiction was really kind of tranquilizers, Quaaludes, and Valium,” he noted. “It really took a toll on him and he had to work very hard to kind of break free from that depression. It was a hard struggle for him and it was hard for us, seeing him go through that.”
Jackie died at 63 in 1987 of an apparent heart attack.
Frosty the Snowman, streaming on Hulu, Peacock, and Disney+