Born in Elgin, Illinois, one of five children of Gerald Francis and Marjorie (née Gosselin) Fitzgerald, he graduated from Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic boarding school in 1978, and from Dartmouth College in 1982.
Born in Elgin, Illinois, one of five children of Gerald Francis and Marjorie (née Gosselin) Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald spent most of his life in Inverness, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. He graduated from Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic boarding school in 1978, and from Dartmouth College in 1982.