Christopher Mark Pula, who began his career in broadcasting at CNN, became a marketer of Hollywood films, and 25 years ago moved to Provincetown where he became an innkeeper, volunteered at the local soup kitchen, and earned a reputation for generosity, died on Dec. 29, 2024. He was 69. The cause was reported to be liver disease.
Chris had an unforgettable voice, like a foghorn, a honk, or a bark. “He was loud,” his husband, Thom Biggert, told film industry journalist Mike Fleming, who wrote about Pula’s death in Deadline Hollywood. “In Hollywood,” Fleming wrote, “that was not always a virtue.”
But in Provincetown, it was: at the Soup Kitchen in Provincetown, where Chris volunteered regularly, he spent most of his time busing tables. He loved talking to everybody, and he would burst into song — “Everybody Dance Now” — loudly and out of the blue, Thom said.
“He had a way of communicating that had its own texture,” said his friend Gail Strickland. She called his distinctive voice his “Chris-ness.”
Chris was born on March 6, 1955 in Detroit to the late Art and Patricia (McGovern) Pula. His father was in the Army, stationed in Korea, so his mother moved with Chris to live with her parents above the funeral home they ran. According to Thom, Chris would say he recalled cheers from nearby Detroit Stadium spoiling the mood during solemn memorial services.
When his father returned from the war, the family moved to Kalamazoo, Mich. Chris stayed in Michigan for college, studying social work and Russian at Michigan State. After he graduated in 1977, he moved to Atlanta, where he met Thom. They enrolled in Georgia State University’s M.B.A. program together.
In Atlanta, Chris also began his career in broadcasting, joining CNN’s start-up team in 1979. He graduated in 1983, and a year later he left for New York, where he got into advertising with Grey Entertainment & Media.
After five years, Hollywood called, and Chris headed west to join Fox, where he worked in advertising for films including Home Alone and Edward Scissorhands, gaining a reputation for taking a character-driven approach to his projects. He left Fox to become head of marketing at New Line Cinema in 1993, went from there to Warner Brothers in 1997, and just one year later became president of movie marketing at Disney Studios.
Film industry journalist and critic David Poland eulogized Chris in a New Year’s Day post on his substack, The Hot Button, writing that Chris would have done great at Disney if he’d been “the kind of guy who kept his passions and his thoughts and his natural style hidden behind a three-piece suit.” Chris wasn’t that kind of guy. Instead, Poland wrote, “Chris Pula was a force of nature. He behaved as he chose. He spoke truth out loud.”
After 10 years in Hollywood, Chris and Thom left for Provincetown, where they bought a house at 473 Commercial St. that had once belonged to Arctic explorer and naturalist Adm. Donald MacMillan. The two also bought the inn known since the early 1900s as the Merry Meeting. There, Thom said, “Chris was just as happy greeting guests and making beds as he was in Hollywood.”
In his 25 years in Provincetown, Chris was known for his generosity. “He’d make blueberry muffins and pass them out to neighbors,” Thom said. “He’d put too many blueberries in, and they’d fall apart. But they were fabulous, and people loved them.”
Chris understood the small things that make everyday life enjoyable: he was a voracious consumer of the news, reading the New York Times every morning and spending hours watching MSNBC. An early dinner at George’s, just a short walk away, was one of his rituals.
Chris is survived by his husband, Thomas Biggert of Provincetown; his sisters, Anne Marie Pula-Campbell and husband Matt Campbell of Jackson, Mich. and Barbara Pula Ostrowsky and husband Nick Ostrowsky of Hebron, Ky.; his brother, John Pula and wife Pam of Kalamazoo, Mich.; and other family and many friends.
He was predeceased by brother Greg Pula.
Celebrations of Chris’s life are planned for Provincetown and Los Angeles, with details to be announced.
Donations in Chris’s memory may be made to the Soup Kitchen in Provincetown.
