Eric William Dane was born in 1972, in San Francisco, California. He is the older of two brothers. His father is an architect and interior designer based in San Francisco. His mother was a homemaker. Young Eric Dane was a good athlete in high school. There, he started amateur stage work by playing "Joe Keller" in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", and realized that this was all he wanted to do.

He moved to Los Angeles and made his television debut in 1993 on The Wonder Years. In his early career, he also played bit parts on the TV series Married with Children (1995), Silk Stalkings (1996) and Roseanne (1996). Dane played medical doctors more that once, first appearing as a "Dr. Cooper" in Gideon's Crossing. From 2003-2004, he has been a recurrent guest star as "Jason Dean" in the hit show Charmed. In 2006, he appeared as handsome "Dr. Mark Sloan", the plastic surgeon on the show Grey's Anatomy. Dane landed his first leading role on the big screen in the German made feature Open Water 2 (aka Adrift).

On October 29, 2004, in Las Vegas, Eric Dane married actress Rebecca Gayheart, who was previously engaged to producer/director Brett Ratner, who is the director of none other than X-Men: The Last Stand. In it, Dane plays the character of "Jamie Madrox", the Multiple Man.