The cause of death has been released for Julian Sands, the English actor whose remains were found last month after having gone missing while hiking on Mount Baldy in California back in January. According to the San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Coroner Department, the official cause of Sands’ death is “undetermined” due to the condition of the body, something that the department’s public information officer said in a statement is not unusual given the circumstances around the case. Sands was 65 at the time of his death.
“The cause is ‘Undetermined’ due to the condition of the body and because no other factors were discovered during the coroner’s investigation, this is common when dealing with cases of this type,” Mara Rodriguez said in a statement (via CNN). “This is the final determination.”
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Sands, an experienced hiker, was reported missing on January 13th of this year and had been hiking in the Baldy Bowl hiking area around 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The search for the actor had resumed in June after having been hindered for five months due to extreme weather conditions over the winter. His body was located on Mount Baldy on June 24th with positive identification of his remains coming a few days later.
Born on January 4, 1958, in Otley, West Yorkshire, Sands’ first role in front of the camera was in the TV series Play for Today, but would make a name for himself with 1984’s The Killing Fields. The very next year he would star opposite Helena Bonham Carter in 1985’s A Room with a View, which would go on to be nominated for eight Academy Awards and earn him critical acclaim. His other roles of the era included playing the title role in 1989’s Warlock, and its 1993 sequel Warlock: The Armageddon. he also starred in Naked Lunch, Leaving Las Vegas, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Medallion.
DC fans may best know Sands for playing Jor-El in two episodes of Smallville, and Dr. Gerald Crane (father of Batman villain Scarecrow) in two episodes of Gotham. He has also appeared in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Elementary, and Netflix’s What/If.
“I was very honored to play Jor-El, because he’d only been played before, I think, by Marlon Brando. I liked Smallville,” Sands explained in a 2019 interview with Decider. “I found it very touching. I mean, it’s a domestic story about people growing up. Again, I didn’t seek to play Jor-El, I was just asked if I would play him, but it was a great privilege and a very dignified TV piece, I thought. As an actor, people quite often do ask you, “What do you want to play?” But I really have no idea. [Laughs.] I respond to other people’s ideas about who I should play.”
