‘Grey’s Anatomy’ “McSteamy” Actor Was 53

Eric Dane, the hunky actor who discovered fame and the nickname “McSteamy” for his eight-year run because the plastic surgeon Mark Sloan on the ABC drama Grey’s Anatomy, has misplaced his battle with ALS. He was 53.

Dane died Thursday afternoon, his reps introduced in a press release. He revealed in April that he had been recognized with the uncommon degenerative illness, having first skilled signs a 12 months and a half earlier.

“He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife [actress Rebecca Gayheart] and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world,” reads the assertion.

“Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received. The family has asked for privacy as they navigate this impossible time.”

The San Francisco native additionally starred for 5 seasons (2014-18) because the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer trying to find the remedy to a world pandemic on the TNT post-apocalyptic drama The Last Ship. And on HBO’s Euphoria, he had a secret intercourse life as the daddy of Jacob Elordi’s Nate Jacobs throughout that present’s first two seasons (2019-22).

On the massive display, Dane portrayed Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, who can create many copies of himself, in Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and he was a newspaper reporter alongside Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston in David Frankel’s Marley & Me (2008).

The charismatic, blue-eyed Dane had already made an impression as a recurring character on The WB’s Charmed when he first appeared halfway by means of the second season of the Shonda Rhimes-created Grey’s Anatomy. The childhood finest pal of Seattle Grace Hospital neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), Mark had as soon as had an affair with Derek’s spouse, Addison (Kate Walsh).

On the second episode of season three, which premiered Sept. 28, 2006, an uncredited Dane is seen rising from a lodge rest room in a towel round his waist as Derek and Addison discuss their troubled marriage.

“In the moment, it was just another scene to me,” he told Diane Sawyer in an interview about his ALS analysis for Good Morning America. “I just remember walking out of a bathroom with a very nice [effects] gentleman blowing smoke [to create steam] toward me.”

Signed initially for only one episode, Dane grew to become an everyday after that scene and appeared in one other 134 installments by means of May 2012, when Mark and soulmate Lexie (Chyler Leigh) are fatally injured in a aircraft crash through the eighth-season finale (Mark dies firstly of season 9).

While engaged on the present, Dane checked himself into rehab for an dependancy to painkillers, he famous on a 2024 episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. He added that he left the collection due to budgetary causes.

“I wasn’t the same guy they had hired. So I had understood when I was let go,” he stated. “And Shonda was actually nice. She protected us fiercely. She protected us publicly. She protected us privately. … But I used to be most likely fired. It wasn’t ceremoniously like, ‘You’re fired,’ it was similar to, ‘You’re not coming again.’

“If you take the whole eight years on Grey’s Anatomy, I was fucked up longer than I was sober. And that’s when things started going sideways for me. It was overwhelming, and I think I just wanted to pretend that it wasn’t and that I was comfortable with it. Act like you’ve been there, but you haven’t been there.”

Dane did return for one closing Grey’s Anatomy episode in 2021 throughout season 17 when he visits Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) on an imaginary seaside whereas she is in a COVID-induced coma.

Eric William Melvin was born in San Francisco on Nov. 9, 1972. When he was 7, his father, William, an architect and inside designer, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “My grandmother thinks it was an accident,” he stated in a 2014 interview. “Everybody’s got a different opinion on it.” His mom, Leah, would increase him and his youthful brother, Sean.

At San Mateo High School, he was a member on the water polo group, “got roped” into portraying Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and fell laborious for appearing. A month earlier than commencement, he give up college and moved to Los Angeles to take appearing courses.

He made his onscreen debut on a 1991 episode of Saved by the Bell, then confirmed up on The Wonder Years, Married … With Children, Silk Stalkings and Roseanne earlier than touchdown his first TV physician gig on the 2000-01 ABC drama Gideon’s Crossing, starring Andre Braugher.

(Around this time, he began relationship actress Lara Flynn Boyle whereas she additionally was concerned with Jack Nicholson.)

Dane joined Charmed in 2003 to painting Jason Dean, Phoebe’s (Alyssa Milano) boss at The Bay Mirror newspaper and later her boyfriend, for 9 episodes through the collection’ fifth and 6 seasons.

In 2004, he performed Charles “Tex” Watson, one of many Manson household, within the CBS telefilm Helter Skelter, starring Jeremy Davies, earlier than he got here out of that bathe on Grey’s Anatomy.

“The towel scene has definitely done something for me,” Dane stated in 2007. “I guess nobody has to guess what is under my T-shirt anymore.”

As he began out at Seattle Grace, Mark was an actual scoundrel, known as “McSteamy” by the feminine interns on the hospital (a lot of whom he had slept with). And in promotional supplies for the collection, he was described as “the kind of guy who women hate falling for but just can’t resist. Oh, and he can even suture his own cut face.”

In 2010, Dane and Dempsey appeared in Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day, and he performed a rich clubgoer in Burlesque (2010), starring Cher and Christina Aguilera.

While on The Last Ship, on which he additionally served as a producer, the collection went on hiatus in April 2017 whereas he handled melancholy.

More not too long ago, Dane remained in demand with roles within the movies Redeeming Love (2022), Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024), One Fast Move (2024) and Borderline (2025) and with a stint as an FBI agent on the 2025 Prime Video collection Countdown.

And in October, he played a firefighter with ALS on NBC’s Brilliant Minds in his closing function.

He stated he proposed to Gayheart over dinner in October 2004, and so they flew to Las Vegas that night time and bought married. She filed for divorce in 2018 however in March withdrew these paperwork, E! News reported; he advised Sawyer that she was his “biggest champion, my most stalwart supporter.”

Talking about his ALS wrestle with Sawyer, he stated, “I’m angry because my father was taken from me when I was young, and now there’s a very good chance I’m going to be taken from my girls when they’re very young. At the end of the day, I all I want to do is spend time with my family and work a little bit if I can.”