Remains found in California mountains confirmed to be those of actor Julian Sands

Human remains found in the San Gabriel mountains in southern California have been confirmed to be those of Julian Sands, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has said.

The British actor (65) had been missing for more than five months, after failing to return from a hike in the Mount Baldy area on January 13th.

The remains were found in the same area on Saturday by civilian hikers, with a coroner later confirming them to be those of Sands.

The news was shared with the PA news agency by the Sheriff’s department on Tuesday.

“The identification process for the body located on Mt Baldy on June 24th, 2023, has been completed and was positively identified as 65-year-old Julian Sands of North Hollywood,” a statement said.

“The manner of death is still under investigation, pending further test results.

“We would like to extend our gratitude to all the volunteers that worked tirelessly to try to locate Mr Sands.”

Last week Sands’ family released a statement saying they were continuing to keep him “in our hearts with bright memories”.

“We are deeply grateful to the search teams and co-ordinators who have worked tirelessly to find Julian,” a family statement, issued on Wednesday by the sheriff’s department, read.

“We continue to hold Julian in our hearts with bright memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of the natural world and the arts, and as an original and collaborative performer.”

A search party organised at the time of Sands’ disappearance was pulled out after 24 hours later due to avalanche risks and poor trail conditions. Several subsequent efforts came up empty-handed, including a major search conducted the weekend before Sands’ remains were ultimately found, according to the sheriff’s department.

Sands had ventured into the area despite weather advisories warning that heavy snow from weeks of winter storms in Southern California had made the Mt Baldy area treacherous for outdoor recreation, with overnight temperatures dropping into the 4 to minus 4 Celsius range at times.

Cellphone signals detected on Sunday, January 15th, showed Sands was then heading toward the ridge of Mount Baldy, apparently the last indication he was still on the move, the sheriff’s department reported then.

Sands, in a 2020 interview with The Guardian newspaper, described himself as happiest when he was “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning”. He also recalled a brush with death during a climb in the Andes in the early 1990s when he became caught in a storm above 20,000 feet with three others.

“We were all in a very bad way,” he recounted. “Some guys close to us perished. We were lucky.”

Born in England as the third of five boys and educated at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire, Sands began his career with supporting roles in such films as “Oxford Blues,” appearing as the romantic rival of Rob Lowe’s lead character, and “The Killing Fields,” playing a young war correspondent in Cambodia.

Sands moved to California in the 1980s after the success of “A Room with a View,” an Edwardian period romance in which he was cast as the leading man opposite Helena Bonham Carter.

Based on E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel of the same title and set in England and Italy, the 1985 film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture. It won Oscars for best adapted screenplay, art direction and costume design.

Developing a knack for the horror genre, Sands also starred as a son of Satan in the 1989 supernatural thriller “Warlock” and its sequel “Warlock: The Armageddon.” He played a spider expert in the 1990 comedy-creeper “Arachnophobia,” a twisted, obsessed surgeon in 1993′s “Boxing Helena” and the title role in the 1998 film version of “The Phantom of the Opera.”

Other movies included “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Naked Lunch” and the English-language remake of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” He also appeared in more than two dozen television shows, among them “Smallville” as Superman’s biological dad Jor-El.

In recent years, Sands found success appearing in one-man stage shows reciting the poetry of Harold Pinter, John Keats and Percy Shelley, the latter of which he played in the 1986 psychological thriller “Gothic.”

Although never Oscar-nominated himself, Sands dated Jodie Foster and was her escort to the Academy Awards in 1989 the night she won her first best-actress statuette for “The Accused.” The two co-starred in the little-seen 1987 indie film “Siesta.” –PA/Reuters