Julian Sands, the 65-year-old actor who went missing while ascending Mount Baldy in California in January, has been confirmed deαd.
The San Fernando Sheriff’s Department verified on Tuesday that the remains discovered by recreational hikers in the Mount Baldy region over the weekend are those of Sands.
“The identification process for the body discovered on Mt. Baldy on June 24, 2023, has been completed and 65-year-old Julian Sands of North Hollywood has been positively identified.” The cause of death is still being investigated, pending the results of additional tests,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department said in a statement. “We would like to express our gratitude to all of the volunteers who worked tirelessly to find Mr. Sands.”
The British actor is best known for his work in films such as A Room with a View (1985), Warlock (1989), and Arachnophobia (1990).
Sands appeared on Smallville, 24, and Crossbones, and contributed his voice to the animated series Jackie Chan Adventures.
He previously married journalist Sarah Sands, with whom he had a son named Henry. In 1990, he married novelist Evgenia Citkowitz, and they had two children, Natalya and Imogen.
The Sands family issued a message on Twitter last week, saying they were “deeply grateful to the search teams and coordinators who have worked tirelessly to find Julian” over the past five months.
They said they were “deeply grateful to the search teams and coordinators who have worked tirelessly to find Julian” since he disappeared on a hike. https://t.co/5Kyob3oXQk
— WFMY News 2 (@WFMY) June 24, 2023
“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,” his family wrote at the time.
Sands, who starred in well over 100 movie parts during a career that began in the 1980s, was reported missing in the Baldy Bowl area by his wife Evgenia on Jan. 13.
Previously, search and rescue workers were unsuccessful in discovering Sands in the days following his disappearance. At the same time, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department stated on Jan. 23 that it would “continue to utilize the resources” at its disposal.
The actor’s brother Nick stated in January that he believed Julian, fondly known as “Jules,” had “gone,” telling the Craven Herald & Pioneer on January 24, “He has not yet been declared missing, presumed dead, but I know in my heart that he has gone.”
“However, sibling rivalry being what it is, it would be just like him to walk out of there and prove me wrong,” Nick continued.
Sands was most recently seen in the film Seneca: On the Creation of Earthquakes, which had its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, alongside his friend and co-star John Malkovich.
The actor has recently starred in The Piper, released this year, and has three further projects in post-production.
Sands, an avid hiker, told The Guardian in 2020 that a “remote peak in the high Himalayas, such as Makalu,” was at the top of his bucket list — and that the closest he’d ever come to deαth was during an expedition in the Andes Mountains in the early 1990s, when he and three others were “caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000 feet.”
“We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky,” he stated.
Sands stated in the same interview that his greatest fear is “inactivity, immobility, ill health, and boredom,” and that he is happiest when “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning.”
At the time, he wanted to be remembered as “an interesting, amusing father by my children.” Sands also said, “Life is short,” so “be nice and grab it with both hands.”
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For almost 4 years, Jason Martin has been a freelance writer for newspapers, journals, blogs, books, and online material. He covers the most recent news as well as many other topics.