A Brooklyn native, the model-turned-actor Glenn Fitzgerald began his career by doing print ads for such brands as Calvin Klein, then segued into dramatic work in the mid-'90s. Fitzgerald debuted on film with Lisa Krueger's finely wrought Sundance Festival drama Manny & Lo (1996), but his sophomore effort, David O. Russell's Gen-X comedy Flirting With Disaster, marked his watershed moment. The actor's neat comic turn in that film as Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda's acid-pushing son finally made audiences sit up and take notice and virtually established Fitzgerald's career. As a result, he spent the following decade among the casts of the hottest independent and studio-driven American films. These included Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (as the young man at a "key drop" party who attracts the attention of adulterous housewife Sigourney Weaver), The Sixth Sense (1999), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), and Igby Goes Down (2002). Fitzgerald made a particularly strong impression in the satire Series 7: The Contenders (2001), as the participant of a twisted reality television show who harbors an extreme desire to end his life.
On the small screen, Fitzgerald occasionally worked as a guest actor, appearing on such series as Six Feet Under and Law & Order. In 2007, he scored a regular prime-time role on the soapy drama Dirty Sexy Money, playing Episcopalian priest Brian Darling, a member of the incredibly wealthy Darling clan, who lives a less than holy life, including fathering a secret illegitimate child.