British actor Julian Sands has been pronounced dead at the age of 65 after being missing for five months. The information was confirmed by the San Bernardino County Police Department on Tuesday (6/21), after it found remains in the Mount Baldy mountain region of Southern California where the actor was last seen.
“The cause of death is still under investigation pending further test results,” officials said. Several helicopter and drone search operations have been carried out since January, which had to be halted due to hazardous weather conditions in the region, but were recently resumed in June.
Sands is known for his work in horror films with bizarre plots such as ‘Goth’ (1986), ‘Arachnophobia’ (1990) and ‘Boxing Helena’ (1993). Throughout his career, he has also made several appearances in television series, such as ‘Dexter’ and ‘Smallville’, as well as playing terrorist Vladimir Bierko in ’24 Hours’.
Despite his fame in the horror genre, the actor was first known for playing George Emerson in the novel ‘A Window to Love’ (1985), which he played alongside actress Helena Bonham Carter. James Ivory’s long is considered one of the best novels of all time.
Alongside his acting career, the actor has been heavily involved in outdoor activities which involved hiking and excursions. He became adept at walking in the mountains and confessed in interviews that it was one of his great passions. In acting he considered himself a “free-spirited” artist, open to different roles in completely different genres.
Early career marked by romanticism
Born in the city of Otley, United Kingdom, Julian Richard Morley Sands began his acting career in 1982 in an episode of the series “Play for Today”, produced by the British broadcaster BBC. His early career was marked by small roles in British television and feature films, such as “An Oxford Adventure” (1984) and “The Silence Screams” (1984).
His breakthrough role came in the romance ˜A Window to Love’ (1985), where he wowed the audience as the handsome George Emerson. Based on the work of EM Forster, the story tells the love story between George and the aristocrat Lucy, played by Helena Bonham Carter, who have to fight to be together, due to social differences.
Considered one of the great novels of cinema, the film was responsible for exploiting the career of the actor. The James Ivory-directed production received 7 Academy Award nominations, including in the Best Picture category. It won Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
A curious fact is that the work almost never left the drawing board. In an interview with Decider in 2019, Sands revealed that the film was nearly scrapped when a producer tried to cancel production just two days before filming was due to begin. “They said, ‘We can’t do this, no one will ever see it,'” he said. “And I think they said, ‘Let’s cancel unless you offer John Travolta the role of George Emerson!'”
Career runs through psychological terror
Soon after, Sands took a very alternative path: the psychological horror “Gothic” (1986), directed by Ken Russell. In the story, which imaginatively recreates the night the story of Frankenstein was conceived, he played the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. “I didn’t want to become a Hollywood actor. I was looking for something exotic, things that took me out of myself. I think I found myself a bit boring,” he revealed to The Guardian in 2018 about the choices that followed.
Over the next few years, the actor plunged into dark productions. He was in the supernatural thriller “Marks of a Passion” (1987), alongside Ellen Barkin and Jodie Foster, and “Manika – The Girl Who Was Born Twice” (1989), the plot of which was based on a true story of reincarnation. Directed by the French François Villiers, the film was awarded at the Cannes Film Festival.
Continuing with increasingly eccentric roles, the actor played a powerful medieval sorcerer resurrected in the present day in the apocalyptic horror film Warlock (1989) directed by Steve Miner, which won a sequel in 1993. He followed this path in the thriller ” Arachnophobia” (1990) and “Mysteries and passions” (1991), both disturbing narratives involving insects and bizarre events.
In “Encaixotando Helena” (1993), the actor plays a surgeon obsessed with a woman to absurd levels. After she is in a car accident, he amputates her legs and keeps her a prisoner in her home, performing several surgeries to keep her close to him. The film touches upon themes such as obsession, control and desire, exploring the disturbing relationship between the two protagonists.
Directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch, daughter of David Lynch, the R-Rated feature generated controversy and was a box office flop. Its budget was $4 million while it only grossed $1.79 million. Despite the failure, Sands confessed that he is more interested in playing characters in films with that imprint. “I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with such wide-ranging and quirky independents,” he told BBC Radio 2 in 2011.
At that time, the actor appeared in such feature films as “Murder in Tennessee” (1989), “Nights in the Sun” (1990), “Mean” (1991), “Revenge in the Name of Love” (1991), ” Vampire – Immortal Passion” (1992) and minor productions of the alternative circuit.
Television appearances and different genres
In the late 1990s, he made three dramas with director Mike Figgis, the award-winning “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995), “One Night Only” (1997) and “The Loss of Innocence” (1998), but soon returned to horror with “Um Vulto na Escuridão” (1998), an Italian reinterpretation of “The Phantom of the Opera” directed by the master of the genre Dario Argento.
Diversifying his filmography, he entered the 2000s filming with Mel Gibson the thriller “The Hotel of a Million Dollars” (2000), by the German Win Wenders, he played King Louis XIV in the historical drama “Vatel, a banquet for the king” (2000), by the Englishman Roland Joffé, and the fantasy villain “O Medalhão” (2003), with Jackie Chan.
At this time, Sands also began to make his mark in television series, usually as a villain. Lived Vladimir Bierko, the main antagonist of the fifth and best season of the series “24 Hours”, released in 2005. The character was a Russian terrorist leader of a radical group who intend to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States, including the launch of lethal gas in Los Angeles.
At the same time, he also made an appearance in the superhero universe as Jor-El, the biological father of Superman played by Tom Welling in ‘Smallville’. “I was really honored to play Jor-El because he’s only been played before, I think, by Marlon Brando,” he told BBC Radio 2 in 2011. “I loved ‘Smallville’. The family story about people growing up “.
He has also been in ‘Dexter’, ‘Gotham’, ‘The Blacklist’, ‘Medici: Masters of Florence’, ‘Elementary’ and ‘Into the Dark’ while continuing to work in film including popular films such as ‘Ocean’s Thirteen and A New Secret” (2007), “Millennium: Men Who Disliked Women” (2011) and “The Last Samurai” (2012).
His latest works include the Czech war drama ‘The Painted Bird’ (2019), awarded at the Venice Film Festival, the horror films ‘The Haunted House’ (2021) and ‘The Ghosts of Monday’ (2022), and the German – The Moroccan feature film “Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes”, released at the 73rd Berlin Film Festival in February this year, one month after its disappearance in the mountains of California.
Source: Terra
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