Missing British actor Julian Sands has been confirmed dead after the body found in the San Gabriel mountains in southern California was identified as 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 during a trek in the snow-covered Mount Baldy area of California’s San Gabriel Mountains.
On June 24, hikers stumbled upon human remains in the wilderness near Mount Baldy, which were then sent to the coroner’s office for identification.
The body has now been confirmed as Sands. His cause of death is still being determined.
San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department said in a statement today: ‘The identification process for the body located on Mt. Baldy on June 24, 2023, has been completed and was positively identified as 65-year-old Julian Sands of North Hollywood.
‘The manner of death is still under investigation, pending further test results.’
Sands, an avid hiker and mountaineer, was reported missing in January after setting out on the peak that rises more than 10,000 feet east of Los Angeles.
The region was pounded by severe storms during winter.
The actor was married to US journalist Evgenia Citkowitz and had three adult children.
Since Sands’ disappearance on January 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, staff and deputies, but did not find any trace.
Mount Baldy towers above Los Angeles and is approximately 10,064 feet high.
Just last week, his family said in a statement: ‘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.
‘We are deeply grateful to the search teams and coordinators who have worked tirelessly to find Julian.’
Sands was born in 1958 in Yorkshire, northern England, to mother Brenda who raised him and his four brothers alone following her divorce.
He was privately educated at Lord Wandsworth College, a boarding school in the Hampshire countryside, before making the leap into acting.
Sands initially landed minor roles, starring alongside Anthony Hopkins in the 1983 TV film 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 acclaimed historical drama about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Sands starred as journalist Jon Swain in the triple-Oscar winning film.
But it was his turn the following year in the adaptation of the classic E.M. Forster novel A Room With A View that propelled Sands to stardom.
Portraying the philosophical and free-thinking George Emerson, he falls in love with Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Lucy Honeychurch, at a Florentine pensione in the period drama.
The pair locked lips in a poppy field in what is considered one of the most romantic on-screen kisses of all time.
