Your bag is empty.
Eric Dane knew something was not right when he couldn’t handle his chop sticks during lunch with his children.
It was Jan. 7, 2024, and Dane, an actor for more than 30 years who was best known for playing Dr. Mark Sloan on “Grey’s Anatomy,” wondered why his hand tingled and fingers felt numb. He didn’t think much of it—until it happened again weeks later.
“I tell myself, This isn’t really happening. Everything’s gonna be fine. I immediately pull on the armor I wear over my emotions. Denial. Defiance. Soldiering on. Toughing it out. I can handle it, whatever it is, and, my go-to, Everything’s gonna be fine,” Dane remembered. “It’s not.”
In November 2024, Dane was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“It’s what we feared,” he remembered telling his wife, Rebecca.
Soon, he could no longer use his right arm and he had to use a wheelchair. Dane died on Feb. 19, 2026, from respiratory failure related to ALS. He was 53.
Nine months after his death, Dane’s final message and memories are captured in his posthumous memoir, “My Book of Days,” which is out Tuesday. Dane had lived a lot of life, so it’s no surprise that he had a lot to say about his family, career, fight with addiction and the stories too wild not to share.
“Don’t wait until you get the worst possible news before you decide to become your best possible person.”
“Or friend. Or husband. Or dad,” he wrote. “Start today. Start now. Trust me.”
“I don’t have an aversion to needles, and I have ropes for veins, so shooting up comes easy … I become a tremendous vein tracker, finding veins in various out-of-the-way spots on my friends’ bodies, and plunging the needle right in, easily, a street corner phlebotomist.”
When Dane vomited after doing heroin for the first time in the early ’90s, he described it as “the most sensational throwing up I’ve ever done.” In the years that followed, Dane, who described himself in his early 20s not as an addict but rather “an enthusiastic occasional drug user, blowing off steam on weekends,” admitted to finding himself in bad situations. In “My Book of Days,” he recalled one night when he had done a speedball of heroin and cocaine, and started firing a shotgun while riding through Hollywood. “We’re high and drunk and screaming and laughing and out of our minds and we think that shooting a shotgun at 3 a.m. into the heart of Hollywood is hilarious,” he wrote. “In retrospect, of course, it’s a colossally stupid idea.”
“You just hijacked ‘Grey’s Anatomy.'”
Dane didn’t think much of what was supposed to be a one-episode appearance on ABC’s hit medical drama in 2005. But from the moment his character, Dr. Mark Sloan, walked out of a bathroom soaking wet and wearing only a towel, viewers couldn’t get enough of “McSteamy.” Among them was his friend, Shon, who called to tell him, “I’m watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and you come on, Dr. McSteamy, and you hijacked the fucking show.” Dane didn’t know if others felt that way, but that changed when his manager called the next morning to let him know that he was offered to be a series regular on ‘Grey’s.’ “I got the gig I wanted,” Dane wrote. “Be thankful for what you have. More than that, enjoy it. If you can.”
“Shonda never fires me. I’m never let go. It doesn’t go down like that. Shonda gives me the word more informally, and with a heavy heart: ‘You’re not coming back.'”
Dane admitted that his addiction to painkillers, and taking up to 40 a day after a sinus surgery, affected his performance on ‘Grey’s.’ After seven seasons, Dane wrote that he was let go because he had gotten too expensive. “My ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ ending does
come, not because of my addiction, although it’s safe to say my addiction didn’t help,” he wrote. When showrunner Shonda Rhimes broke the news to him, Dane wasn’t surprised that he’d be killed off. “Dr. Mark Sloan dies in that hospital bed, although I must say, I look damn good,” he remembered.
“I’ve never thought of myself as an artist until I started working on ‘Euphoria.'”
When Dane returned to TV on HBO’s ‘Euphoria,’ the role of Cal Jacobs, a successful real-estate developer and family man who has reckless, secret sex with men and transgender teens, was as challenging and volatile of a character as he had ever played. I’ve never played a character that comes close to Cal. The mood swings. The anger. The desperation. The viciousness,” he wrote, noting how him and showrunner Sam Levinson talked about how Cal is “not a good guy.” “But I find the good in him. I discover that he’s a damaged soul who’s been living a lie most of his life and is struggling now to come to terms with how broken he is.”
“I wish I could wrap my arms around you. I can’t lift my arms anymore.”
Every year, Dane hugged his daughter, Billie, at the end of her dance company’s performance of The Nutcracker. Toward the end of his life, he realized in his wheelchair that he would never give Billie another traditional hug again. “This moment—my daughter
holding me, my arms and hands useless, the two of us crying—feels incredibly beautiful, and I think we may be forced to start a new tradition,” he wrote. “Then Billie pulls away and wipes her cheek and nose with the back of her wrist, and she whispers, ‘I love you, Dad.'”
“When you face challenges, health or otherwise, fight. Never give up. No matter what happens to you, fight until your last breath.”
On his last day, all Dane could think about was his final message to his daughters, Billie and Georgia. “I try to imagine you in 10 years,” he wrote. “Georgia. Who will you be at 24? I see you—beautiful, poised, confident. Billie. Who will you be at 26? I see you—also beautiful, imposing, strong.” In his dying days, Dane stressed how proud he was of his daughters and what they would become, even though he’d never get to see it.
“I see you now, my daughters, and I’m bursting with pride at the young women you’re on the verge of becoming. I did a lot wrong in my life, made a ton of missteps,” he wrote. “But you two are my legacy, my heart, my everything.”
