Global Courant
British actor Julian Sands, who starred in several Oscar-nominated films in the late 1980s and 1990s, including A Room With a View and Leaving Las Vegas, was found dead on a mountain in Southern California five months after his disappearance while hiking , the authorities said. Tuesday.
An investigation confirmed it was Sands whose remains hikers found Sunday in the wilderness near Mount Baldy, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. A longtime avid hiker living in Los Angeles, the 65-year-old actor was reported missing on Jan. 13 after making his way to the summit, which rises more than 10,000 feet east of the city.
Crews, aided by drones and helicopters, had searched for Sands several times but were severely hampered by wintry conditions that lasted into the spring. There was no sign of Sands until the walkers came across his remains.
It has not yet been determined how he died, authorities said.
Career of 40 years
Born, raised and started acting in England, Sands worked constantly in film and television, accumulating over 150 credits in a 40-year career. Over a period of 10 years from 1985 to 1995, he played lead roles in a series of critically acclaimed films.
After studying at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Sands embarked on a career in stage and film, playing small parts in films such as Oxford Blues and The Killing Fields. He landed the lead role of George Emerson, who falls in love with Helena Bonham Carter’s Lucy Honeychurch, while vacationing in Tuscany, in the 1985 British romance A Room With a View.
Sands, left, and director Vaclav Marhoul talk while filming a scene for The Painted Bird movie near the village of Boletice, Czech Republic, in November 2017. (David W Cerny/Reuters)
The film from director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Picture and was nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.
In the wake of its success, Sands moved to the United States to pursue a career in Hollywood.
He played the title role in the 1989 horror fantasy Warlock and its sequel. In the 1990 horror comedy Arachnophobia, starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman, Sands played an entomologist who specializes in spiders.
Sands speaks at a press conference in Mexico City in May 2012. (Alexandre Meneghini/The Associated Press)
The following year, he appeared in the surreal adaptation of Canadian director David Cronenberg’s 1991 William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.
In 1993, Sands starred in the thriller Boxing Helena, a film that attracted a lot of media attention during production when Madonna and Kim Basinger each accepted the title role before backing out. The role went to Twin Peaks actor Sherilyn Fenn. The movie flopped.
Author Anne Rice defended Sands to play the titular Lestat in the much-hyped 1994 Hollywood adaptation of her novel Interview With the Vampire, but the part went to Tom Cruise.
Sands walks the runway for a fashion show in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in November 2013. (Alvin Baez/Reuters)
In 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas, Sands played an abusive Latvian pimp alongside Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue. The film was nominated for four Oscars, of which Cage won the Best Actor award.
After leaving Las Vegas, the quality of the films Sands was cast in and the scope of his roles began to decline. He worked steadily and appeared in The Million Dollar Hotel by director Wim Wenders and The Phantom of the Opera by director Dario Argento.
He also appeared as a guest star or in recurring roles in TV series including 24, Medici, Smallville, Dexter, Gotham.
