Born in Denver, Colorado, he was one of those stern, heavyset character actors in Hollywood no person could recognize by name. Sande showed an early interest in music as a youth and by his college years managed to start his own band. This led to a job as musical Director for 20th Century-Fox's theater chain, which, in turn, led him to acting in films beginning in 1937. Usually providing atmospheric bits with no billing, he made an initial impression in serial cliffhangers as a third-string heavy with the popular The Green Hornet Strikes Again! and Sky Raiders.

A primary support player during the "Golden Age" of television, Sande worked on nearly every popular western and crime show available in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including Johnny Ringo. In 1949, he played Sheriff Taylor in the three-part The Lone Ranger television premiere, as he helped the masked man and Tonto capture the Butch Cavendish gang. He made 15 appearances on Dragnet, starring Jack Webb, usually portraying Chief of Detectives Thad Brown or some other high-ranking LAPD officer. In 1960, he made a guest appearance on Perry Mason as circus co-owner and murder victim Judson Curtis in "The Case of the Clumsy Clown."

He had a regular series role on the syndicated The Adventures of Tugboat Annie as Captain Horatio Bullwinkle, Annie's rival, and a recurring one as Lars "Papa" Holstrum, on The Farmer's Daughter. He guest starred on the syndicated adventure series Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries; in David Janssen's CBS crime drama Richard Diamond, Private Detective; on the ABC western series The Rebel, starring Nick Adams; on the CBS military sitcom/drama Hennesey with Jackie Cooper; on the ABC/Warner Brothers western series The Alaskans, starring Roger Moore, and in an episode of the NBC 1960s western series Redigo, starring Richard Egan, and in a 1966 episode of Lassie as store owner Tom of Pine Lake.

Sande died of a heart attack in 1971, at the age of sixty-five in Chicago, Illinois.