Grey’s Anatomy star Eric Dane dies at 53 after battle with ALS

LOS ANGELES – American actor Eric Dane, best known as the charming, hunky plastic surgeon nicknamed McSteamy on the wildly successful ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy (2005 to present), has died on Feb 19. He was 53.

He died after

battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),

a neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It breaks down a patient’s ability to control the muscles, speak and eventually breathe without assistance.

His death was confirmed by his publicist Melissa Bank. “He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the centre of his world,” she said in the statement.

He married American actress Rebecca Gayheart, 54, in 2004, and the couple’s girls are aged 14 and 15.

Dane revealed his diagnosis in People magazine in April 2025, and later spoke in interviews and on social media about the challenges of living with the progressing condition. Patients with ALS typically live for only two to five years, though clinical trials for potential therapies have provided hope that lives can be extended by several months.

“I will never forget those three letters,” he said in a 2025 interview with American broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer on television programme Good Morning America. “It’s on me the second I wake up.”

During the interview, he described the loss of function in his right arm. “It’s not a dream,” he added.

As part of a patient advocacy campaign in September 2025, Dane sat in a chair and spoke in a slightly slurred voice: “I am an actor. I am a father and now a person living with ALS.”

He spoke about raising funds and research and “finally, finally push towards ending this disease”.

Eric William Dane was born on Nov 8, 1972, in San Francisco to William Dane, an architect and interior designer, and homemaker Leah (Cohn) Dane, according to his biography on abc.com. He was the older of two brothers.

As a high school student, Eric Dane excelled as an athlete and developed an interest in acting after performing in a production of late American writer Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and made his TV debut on The Wonder Years (1988 to 1993) that year, and landed other small roles in popular TV shows such as Saved By The Bell (1989 to 1993) and Married... With Children (1987 to 1997).

His boyish looks led him to recurring roles as handsome supporting characters, including his first role as a doctor in the former ABC medical drama Gideon’s Crossing (2000 to 2001), and a San Francisco newspaper owner and love interest for American actress Alyssa Milano’s character Phoebe in Charmed (1998 to 2006), the former CW series about three sister witches.

Dane’s acting extended to the big screen. He played a mutant able to make multiple versions of himself in X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. Two years later, he co-starred as the newsroom buddy Sebastian Tunney in the real-life inspired movie Marley & Me (2008), a film about married journalists raising a rumbustious yellow labrador.

Dane’s big breakout role came in 2006 with the popular sudsy medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

He portrayed the handsome, blue-eyed Dr Mark Sloan, the head of plastic surgery at the fictional Seattle hospital where the show was based.

Each week, his character, who was known as McSteamy for his sex appeal and smarmy manner among many of the nurses, residents and even attending physicians, stirred up mischievous drama.

He became known for one scene in particular. Called the “towel scene”, it featured him ripped and shirtless while wrapping a white towel around his waist after a hot shower.

Dane later said he had no idea how memorable the scene would become in the show’s history and in pop culture.

“In the moment, it was just another scene to me,” he recalled in the 2025 interview with Ms Sawyer. “I just remember walking out of the bathroom with a very nice gentleman kind of blowing smoke towards me.”

Dane appeared in 139 episodes of the show, which has been one of ABC’s top-rated programmes since its premiere in 2005.

McSteamy represented one facet of Dane’s career. He also starred as a fearless and by-the-book naval commander in the dystopian suspense series The Last Ship (2014 to 2018) for five seasons.

Dane continued to work after his diagnosis.

One of his more recent credits was a portrayal of the father of Nate Jacobs, played by Australian actor Jacob Elordi, on the HBO teenage drama Euphoria (2019 to present).

And in November 2025, drawing from his own experiences, Dane portrayed a firefighter who wrestled with his family to accept his ALS diagnosis in an episode of NBC’s Brilliant Minds (2024 to present), a medical drama.

The Open Field, American journalist-author Maria Shriver’s publishing imprint at Penguin Random House, is planning to publish his memoir, Book Of Days, A Memoir In Moments, in 2026.

In an interview with American TV host Conan O’Brien in 2015, Dane reflected on his days as McSteamy and how he did not take the fandom seriously. “It’d be awkward if you did,” he said.

He talked about his latest role as a commander of a ship and joked about gaining weight, sitting at the helm and barking orders: “I’m going to let it all go.”

He added: “I just don’t care anymore.” NYTIMES