Eric Dane used to joke about what he’d do to any boy who came near his daughters. Then his older daughter, Billie, told him she wanted to marry Jacob Elordi. That was a choice her dad could get behind.
Dane knew Elordi well. For three seasons on HBO’s Euphoria, he played Cal Jacobs, father to Elordi’s Nate. Their characters’ relationship was so bitter that Nate turned his father in to the police at the end of the second season.
Dane tells Billie’s story in My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments, published November 3, nearly nine months after Dane died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) on February 19 at age 53. The former Grey’s Anatomy star spent the last year of his life working on it.
Between memories of getting sober, meeting actress Rebecca Gayheart and becoming a father, Dane wrote short chapters titled “Today” in which he spoke directly to their daughters, Billie, now 16, and Georgia, 14. He had some practical dating advice for them, too. For one thing, he recommended steering clear of coworkers.
Eric Dane Gave Jacob Elordi His Vote of Confidence
By the time his girls were teenagers, Dane wrote, what he wanted most was for them to be safe. As for Billie’s pick of a future husband, he gave his verdict in a passage quoted by Entertainment Weekly. “I approve. He’s a good kid. See? Maturity.”
Dane had spoken just as warmly about Elordi while they were making the show. In a 2022 profile for GQ, he described a scene partner who could joke around with him between takes and still deliver the same intensity hours into a shoot. “He’s always focused, and he’s always prepared,” Dane said.
After Dane’s death, Penguin Random House enlisted Elordi to narrate the memoir. Maria Shriver, whose imprint published the book, reads the opening “Dear Reader” chapter she wrote herself.
Rebecca Gayheart Wanted Her Daughters to Have Their Father’s Own Words
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On the eve of publication, Gayheart wrote on Instagram about how proud the family was of Dane for sharing his memories. She told USA Today that Billie and Georgia would have questions about their dad as they got older. With the book, they could read his answers for themselves.
In one passage, Dane describes how he stayed in touch with Georgia when he could no longer pick up his phone. At 6:15 one morning, his nurse, Cynthia, held the phone to his mouth so he could dictate his daily text. “Good morning, I love you,” he said in an excerpt published by The Sunday Paper. Once Cynthia set the phone back on his nightstand, he couldn’t reach it.
Gayheart and Dane had separated years earlier but continued to raise their daughters together. In a November 3 interview with Shriver for NBC’s Today, Gayheart said she’d expected Dane to come home from his last hospital stay as he had before. She and the girls slept over in his room, brought in battery-operated candles and played his favorite music.
In ‘The Last Today,’ Dane Imagined His Daughters Ten Years Older
Dane pictured Georgia at 24, poised and confident, and Billie at 26, strong and sure of herself. He could imagine their circle of close friends. What hurt was knowing he wouldn’t get to meet the people they might marry. He wanted each girl to find someone kind who took her seriously and treated her as an equal.
He also admitted he would prefer them to find careers outside show business, though he suspected they might choose otherwise. In September, Georgia made her acting debut alongside her mother in Lifetime’s The Ocean Between Them. She played Ashley, the younger daughter of Gayheart’s character.
Dane told the girls that his biggest regret was that he hadn’t spent more time with them. As ALS progressed, he feared he might one day know exactly what he wanted to say to them and have no way to say it. He closed the chapter by telling them how proud he was, then signed off with five words. “Good night, I love you.”