Actor Julian Sands’ cause of death ruled ‘undetermined’

The cause of death for British actor Julian Sands, who went missing while hiking on a mountain in California in January, has officially been ruled as “undetermined,” local authorities said Monday.

Sands, who shot to fame as the romantic hero in the 1980s period drama “A Room with a View,” vanished on the 10,000-foot (3,000-meter) Mount San Antonio, known locally as Mount Baldy.

But it wasn’t until June that human remains, later determined to be those of Sands, were discovered by hikers. Sands was 65.

“The cause is ‘Undetermined’ due to the condition of the body and because no other factors were discovered during the coroner’s investigation,” a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County sheriff-coroner’s department told AFP in a statement.

“This is common when dealing with cases of this type,” she added. “This is the final determination.”

Sands’ break-out role was as plain-speaking George Emerson in “A Room with a View,” the Oscar-winning 1985 adaptation of EM Forster’s novel.

In a varied subsequent career, Sands appeared in films as diverse as Frank Marshall’s 1990 spider-themed horror romp “Arachnophobia”, David Cronenberg’s controversial “Naked Lunch” and the alcohol-soaked 1995 drama “Leaving Las Vegas”, directed by Mike Figgis and starring Nicolas Cage.

After the success of “A Room with a View”, Sands moved to Los Angeles.

He married writer Evgenia Citkowitz in 1990. He left behind three children including a son with his previous wife, British journalist Sarah Sands. (BSS/AFP)