Julian Sands’ cause of death has been deemed ‘undetermined’ by coroners due to the condition of his body when it was found.
The British actor’s remains were located six months after he was reported missing while hiking in California. Coroners made the determination a month after the actor’s body was recovered from the Mount Baldy area.
No other factors in his death were found during the coroner’s investigation, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino county police department told the Hollywood Reporter, adding that such a determination is “common when dealing with cases of this type”.
Sands, 65, failed to return from a hike in the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California on January 13. The British actor was a dedicated mountaineer and was exploring the Baldy Bowl area of southern California when the weather turned.
Civilian hikers contacted authorities at the start of the year after finding a body in the Mount Baldy region of the mountains.
A huge search operation had previously been launched after the Yorkshire-born actor was reported missing but there have been no reports of sightings. Searches on foot, drones and helicopter searches were used to try and locate Mr Sands previously.
In his last UK interview, with the Radio Times, he spoke of feeling “chilled” by the discovery of human remains while climbing.
He said at the time: “Pals I used to climb with have stopped going to the mountains. If you don’t really have the desire, the focus for climbing a route, if you’re not absolutely committed, it becomes much more dangerous. I’ve found spooky things on mountains, when you know you’re in a place where many people have lost their lives, whether it be on the Eiger or in the Andes. You may be confronted with human remains and that can be chilling.”
Who was Julian Sands?
An English actor based in the United States, Sands was best known for appearing in popular films and TV dramas including A Room With A View, 24 and Smallville.
Born in Otley, West Yorkshire on January 4, 1958, Sands was educated at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire. His youngest brother, Quentin, was selected by She magazine as “Britain’s Sexiest Man” of 1998.
He began his film career in supporting roles in the 1980s, appearing in Oxford Blues and The Killing Fields. He also had a cameo as a Greek soldier in the BBC adaptation of The Box of Delights.
He was cast as the romantic lead in the 1985 film A Room with a View. Later that year, following the success of A Room with a View and Ken Russell‘s Gothic, Sands moved to Hollywood. He appeared in several films — both lower-tier and higher-budget.
His other notable roles included playing Erik, aka the Phantom, in the 1998 horror-film version of The Phantom of the Opera; starring with Jackie Chan in The Medallion; and portraying Sir Laurence Olivier in BBC Four’s In Praise of Hardcore, a drama about the critic and impresario Kenneth Tynan.
Sands also had theatre experience, winning acclaim for his role in A Celebration of Harold Pinter, directed by John Malkovich at the Pleasance Courtyard at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One theatre, the Irish Repertory Theatre, added an extra three weeks to the show’s run given its success.
Sands had been based in Los Angeles, California, since 2020.
Was Julian Sands married?
Sands was married to Evgenia Citkowitz, a journalist and the daughter of the Anglo-Irish novelist and socialite Lady Caroline Blackwood and American composer-pianist Israel Citkowitz. They married in 1990 and welcomed two daughters.
Sands also had a son from his previous marriage to journalist Sarah Harvey.
