British actor was still alive 2 days after he vanished in mountains
JULIAN Sands was on the move 48 hours after he was reported missing in the California mountains, police have revealed.
The 65-year-old British actor has not been seen since January 13, when he left home to try to climb Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel area – a popular but dangerous trail near Los Angeles.
Search and rescue attempts have been thwarted by the hazardous conditions, with heavy snow hitting the area over the weekend. But a police update has confirmed that Sands is believed to have still been on the move on Sunday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said: ‘On January 15, phone pings showed Sands to be heading to the Mount Baldy area.’
Additional pings have been attempted, but have been unsuccessful – probably because Sands’ phone has run out of battery.
The actor’s children – Henry, Natalya and Imogen – joined the search yesterday. Henry, 37, is an experienced hiker and is understood to have retraced the route his father took before abandoning his efforts due to the weather. Drones and helicopters have been deployed to the mountain range, which is 40 miles from Los Angeles, where the actor has lived since 2020. It is not known if Sands, who starred in A Room With A
View and The Killing Fields, took a tent, but a source close to the family said he would have been ‘well equipped’ for a day’s hike.
Friends took to social media to say Sands was in their thoughts.
All Creatures Great And Small actor Samuel West said: ‘Please, please let Julian Sands be okay. A friend and an inspiration. Awful news.’ Rufus Sewell posted: ‘God, I really hope he’s OK.’
Sands, a keen climber, had a brush with death in the Andes in the early 1990s.
He recalled: ‘I was caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000ft with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.’