He appeared in leading stage roles, in Leicester in 1979 in Sartre’s The Assassin, Brighton in 1984 in Love Affair with Siân Phillips, and at the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon in 1985 in On Approval with Polly James and Christopher Biggins, On British television he was cast in Brideshead Revisited, Upstairs, Downstairs, Rumpole of the Bailey, Quiller and Gentlemen and Players. In the 1983 series Chessgame he played the secret agent Hugh Roskill.

In the early 1990s Sachs moved to Los Angeles after being cast as a guest star in the television series Jake and the Fatman and played Adam Carrington in the miniseries Dynasty: The Reunion. He remained based in the US, guest starring in television shows including The Return of Ironside with Raymond Burr (1993). Among his later films were Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Ocean’s Eleven (2001). He appeared in several science-fiction programmes on television, including Star Trek and Torchwood, and in 1999 played General Sarris in the satirical comedy Galaxy Quest, co-starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. In 2002 he was cast as Peter Brazier, head of Nexexcon in Megalodon. In his last film appearance, Northfork (2002), he played Cup of Tea, the leader of the vestigial community of a town about to be flooded.

Sachs was twice married – from 1979 to 1991 to Siân Phillips, and from 2001 to 2006 to the American actress Casey DeFranco. Both marriages were dissolved. He died of a heart attack on 1 February 2013, four days before his 62nd birthday.