By Sarah Stebbins
From our November 2024 issue
Like many Maine kids, Camden native Caitlin Fitzgerald read Lost on a Mountain in Maine in grade school, and met its co-author, Donn Fendler, during one of his frequent classroom visits. Fendler was 12 years old in 1939, when a storm separated him from his group atop Katahdin, leaving him to fend for himself in the wilderness for nine days. “There’s something about the terror of being lost as a kid that stays with you,” says Fitzgerald, an actress known for roles on Showtime’s Masters of Sex and HBO’s Succession. So when the opportunity arose to play Fendler’s mother, Ruth, in the film adaptation of the book, due out this month, “I was like, well, I have to do that.”
The movie was largely shot in upstate New York, but weaves in some local scenery. And Fitzgerald brings a Yankee sensibility to her portrayal of Ruth, who spent summers with her family on Newport’s Sebasticook Lake. “I wanted to make her strong and not hand-wringy,” Fitzgerald says. “I wanted to pay homage to the Maine women I know who are fierce and steadfast, especially in a crisis.”
Growing up, Fitzgerald performed at Brunswick’s Midcoast Youth Theater and the Camden Opera House before heading to New York to study drama. These days, she lives in London, but returns home a few times a year. Recently, she brought her husband to Monhegan, where she has fond memories of hiking the Cliff Trail with her mom. “I feel like Maine is a litmus test — like, if he hadn’t liked it, that would have been tricky,” she says. “Thankfully, he got it, and I got to stay married.”
