Eric Dane's Real Name: Eric William Dane

Quick answer: Eric Dane was born Eric William Dane on November 9, 1972, in San Francisco, California. He acted under his birth name. Best known as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on Grey's Anatomy and Cal Jacobs on Euphoria, he died of ALS on February 19, 2026, at age 53 (USA Today).

Early life

Dane grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He started acting in a high school production of All My Sons, then moved to Los Angeles to pursue television work. Early roles included guest spots on Saved by the Bell, Roseanne and The Wonder Years, followed by a recurring role on Charmed (as Jason Dean).

Grey's Anatomy and Euphoria

Dane joined ABC's Grey's Anatomy in 2006 as plastic surgeon Mark Sloan and became a series regular. He left the show in 2012. He went on to lead TNT's The Last Ship (2014–2018) as Commander Tom Chandler. From 2019 he played Cal Jacobs, father of Jacob Elordi's character Nate, on HBO's Euphoria, returning for its third and final season, which ended in May 2026 (EW).

ALS diagnosis and death

Dane announced in April 2025 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease). He kept working and became an advocate for ALS research. He died on February 19, 2026. Dane married actress Rebecca Gayheart in 2004; she filed for divorce in 2018 but asked to have it dismissed in 2025, and the two stayed married and co-parented daughters Billie and Georgia (TODAY/NBC News).

The posthumous memoir

His memoir, My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments, was published on November 3, 2026, by The Open Field / Penguin. In it he writes about his addiction to painkillers during his Grey's Anatomy years, an initial misdiagnosis of multifocal motor neuropathy before the ALS diagnosis, and direct messages to his daughters (USA Today; Page Six). Jacob Elordi narrates the audiobook.