U.S. stage and screen actress who won overnight acclaim for her portrayal of the younger sister in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

Sands began her professional career while attending the New York High School for the Performing Arts and made her debut with the Greenwich Mews Theatre in Major Barbara (1954). She also appeared in their production of The World of Sholem Aleichem that year. Her other stage performances included A Land Beyond the River (1957), The Egg and I (1958), Tiger Tiger Burning Bright (1962), The Owl and the Pussycat (1964), and Two for the Seesaw (1967). She became a member of the Pantomime Art Theatre Repertory Group in 1955 and the Compass Players in 1962.

In spite of strong identification of Sands with her role in the screen version of A Raisin in the Sun (1961), she was able to avoid typecasting and played in a variety of motion pictures, including An Affair of the Skin (1963), Georgia, Georgia (1972), and Honeybaby, Honeybaby (1972). She received the Outer Circle Critics Award for best supporting actress and the Variety Drama Critics Poll as most promising actress for A Raisin in the Sun, an International Artist Award (1961), a Theatre World Award (1963), an Obie Award (1964), a Whitbread Award (England, 1966), and both Tony and Emmy nominations before her untimely death.