Julian Sands confirmed dead: body found in California mountains identified as missing British actor
Missing British actor Julian Sands has died after the body found in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California was confirmed to be his remains.
Sands, who was known for his roles in Oscar-nominated films including 1985’s A Room With A View, was reported missing by his family on January 13.
The 65-year-old disappeared while hiking in the Mount Baldy area of California’s San Gabriel Mountains.
On June 24, hikers in the same area stumbled upon human remains in the wilderness near Mount Baldy.
They were sent to the coroner’s office for identification – and it is now confirmed to be Sands. His cause of death is still being determined.
Known for his roles in Oscar-nominated films, including 1985’s A Room With A View, Sands was reported missing by his family on Jan. 13 after disappearing while hiking in the Mount Baldy area of the San Gabriel Mountains in California.
Julian Sands is pictured sitting on a summit of Weisshorn Mountain in the Swiss Alps in September 2022
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Department said in a statement today, “The identification process for the body at Mt. Baldy on June 24, 2023 and positively identified as 65-year-old Julian Sands of North Hollywood.
“The mode of death is still under investigation, pending further test results.”
Sands, an avid hiker and rock climber, was reported missing on Jan. 13 after taking off from the summit that rises more than 10,000 feet east of Los Angeles. The region was ravaged by severe storms in winter.
The actor was married to journalist Evgenia Citkowitz and had three grown children.
Since Sands’ disappearance on Jan. 13, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has conducted eight searches.
Their most recent search mission, on June 17, included more than 80 volunteers, staffers and deputies, but found no trace.
Mount Baldy towers over Los Angeles and is about 10,064 feet high.
Last week, his family said in a statement: “We continue to hold Julian in our hearts with fond memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of the natural world and art, and as an original and collaborative artist. .’
A map of the area where 65-year-old Julian Sands was reported missing. His death has now been confirmed
Sands, 65, was reported missing by his family after disappearing into the dangerous mountain range
Sands was born in 1958 in Yorkshire, Northern England to mother Brenda who raised him and his four brothers alone after her divorce.
He was privately educated at Lord Wandsworth College, a boarding school in rural Hampshire, before making the leap into acting.
Sands initially landed small roles, co-starring with Anthony Hopkins in the 1983 TV movie A Married Man and appearing in Privates on Parade, about a military entertainment group in Malaysia in the late 1940s.
His first major production was 1984’s The Killing Fields, the critically acclaimed historical drama about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Sands played the role of journalist Jon Swain in the three-time Oscar-winning film.
But the following year it was his turn in the adaptation of the classic EM Forster novel A Room With A View that propelled Sands to stardom.
Playing the philosophical and free-thinking George Emerson, he falls in love with Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Lucy Honeychurch, with a Florentine pensioner in the period drama.
The pair locked lips in a poppy field in what is considered one of the most romantic kisses of all time on screen.