Michael A. Uliano

Pleasures of Shore and Stage
Michael A. Uliano, a broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, never changed much from the grinning 10- year-old boy who was profiled in 1969 by his Canton, Mass., paper for snagging a 20-pound bass off Cape Cod. That he had just recovered from a broken wrist only added to his reputation for athleticism.

For the next 32 years, relatives recall, Mr. Uliano returned often to the Cape to dig clams and test out fishing lures he fashioned from chenille and Krazy Glue. He rode the dunes in a 1973 Jeep whose grille he painted to look like a shark's mouth.

Work eventually brought Mr. Uliano to New York, and though he enjoyed being a broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, he really wanted to act. So much, said his sister, Martha King, that he even endured teasing as a student at Ithaca College when he took ballet lessons as a way to improve his football game and prepare for a possible theatrical career.

When he met Linda Buffa in Bay Ridge in 1993, she took note of his Boston accent. He ribbed her about her Noo Yawk habit of talking while chewing gum. They were married in 1996 in Las Vegas, with an Elvis impersonator giving away the bride.

Life had darker moments, too. In March, Ms. Buffa learned she had breast cancer. "Thank God, he was here for that," she said. Daily radiation treatments kept her from attending a ceremony in his honor in which the Canton high school retired the Number 10, which he wore as its quarterback.