Get our free weekly email with the latest film news from our film critic, Clarisse Loughrey
Get our The Life Cinematic email for free
British actor Julian Sands has been identified as the hiker who went missing in the California mountains last week.
The 65-year-old, best known for his role in the Oscar-nominated 1985 film A Room with a View, has been missing from the Mount Baldy area since Friday, January 13, according to authorities.
He was reported missing by his wife, writer Evgenia Citkowitz, on Friday night and is said to have been somewhere along the popular Baldy Bowl Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains. Mount Baldy is a 10,000-foot peak located northeast of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest.
Sands is an avid hiker and mountaineer, who once described his happiest moment as being “near the top of a mountain on a gloriously cold morning.”
Search and rescue workers were on the mountain looking for Sands but had to stop the search due to severe weather and avalanche danger. department spokeswoman Gloria Huerta told CNN.
Drones have been deployed to continue the search, but rescuers are limited with other resources due to the weather.
The Independent understands that Sands’ son Henry has joined the search, accompanied by an experienced climber. Sands has two daughters, Imogen and Natalya, with his wife Citkowitz. He shares Henry with his ex-wife, journalist and editor Sarah Sands (née Harvey).
California has been hit by a series of violent winter storms that have brought flooding and heavy snowfall to the drought-stricken state.
The Sheriff’s Department says it has launched 14 search-and-rescue missions in the Mount Baldy area alone in the past four weeks, resulting in the death of two hikers on the mountain.
Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a free 30-day trial
Register
(Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“These rescue missions were for lost, stranded and/or injured hikers. Unfortunately, in the last 4 weeks, two hikers have not survived after falling and injuring themselves,” the agency said on Facebook.
“Recent storms that have brought snow and ice conditions are not favorable for hikers, even those who think they have a high level of experience.”
Sands, who lives in North Hollywood with Citkowitz, has appeared in more than 150 films and television shows during his career.
Born in Yorkshire, England, he moved to California in the 1980s to pursue a Hollywood career after starring in 1985’s ‘A Room with a View’, a love story based on EM Forster’s 1908 novel, directed by James Ivory was successful.
Sands, who attracted attention for his early performance in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, was cast as the lead actor George Emerson alongside Lucy Honeychurch by Helena Bonham Carter. The film also starred Maggie Smith, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow in supporting roles.
(PA)
A box office success, A Room With a View received critical acclaim upon its release and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, at the 59th Academy Awards.
Sands’ career since A Room With a View has been eclectic, spanning horror, indie, romance and action comedy. He played the title role opposite Richard E Grant and Lori Singer in Warlock With Supernatural Horrors and reprized the role in the sequel Warlock: The Armageddon.
In 1991 he played the composer Franz Liszt in Impromptu, with Hugh Grant as Frederic Chopin and Judy Davis as George Sand.
More recently, he appeared in the Oscar-nominated English language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011 with James Bond star Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.
Follow the latest updates here