- Born
- Died
- Birth nameSiegfried Carl Alban Rumann
- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- Wonderfully talented German-born actor, capable of tremendous comedic and dramatic performances, usually as some type of pompous bureaucrat or similarly arrogant individual. Ruman was born on October 11, 1884, in Hamburg, Germany, and actually studied electrotechnology in college before making the switch to acting. He served with the Imperial German Forces in World War I before coming to the United States in 1924. He became friendly with playwright George S. Kaufman and critic Alexander Woollcott and was regularly appearing in high-quality stage productions on Broadway.
With the advent of talkies, he was kept very busy in the cinema and became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing as stiff-shirted NYC opera owner Herman Gottlieb in the comedy classic A Night at the Opera (1935). He played a know-it-all surgeon crossing swords with Groucho Marx over what exactly was wrong with hypochondriac Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races (1937). and a dual role in A Night in Casablanca (1946). With his German accent, he was also a regular in several WWII espionage thrillers, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), They Came to Blow Up America (1943), and The Hitler Gang (1944), and gave a superb portrayal of the two-faced POW guard Schulz in the splendid Stalag 17 (1953). He was also popular with famed director Ernst Lubitsch, who cast Ruman in Ninotchka (1939), and To Be or Not to Be (1942). In all, he notched up over 100 feature film appearances as well as guest star spots on many TV shows.
Ruman suffered ill health for the final two decades of his life and passed away on February 14, 1967, from a heart attack.
- IMDb mini biography by: firehouse44@hotmail.com
- SpouseElse Rumann(October 30, 1905 - February 14, 1967) (his death, 1 child)
- Wacky, daft comic characters
- Thick German accent, although sometimes played other nationalities (Russia/Dutch)
- Appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: A Night at the Opera (1935), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Ninotchka (1939) and To Be or Not to Be (1942).
- Appears in gym clothes as a portly physical trainer, Herr Hanfstangel, and even gets to sing part of Irving Berlin's "Let's Go Slumming on Park Avenue" in the grand finale of On the Avenue (1937).
- His remains were interred at Julian Cemetery in Julian, San Diego County, CA. His location plot is first section on the right and end of first row.
- Daughter Senta Rumann was born on 1/4/1906 in Germany. Details of her life are unknown as is her date of death.
- Around 1936, Ruman modified his screen name from Siegfried Rumann to Sig Ruman in an attempt to make it a little less German-sounding, as anti-German prejudice was rising at that time, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.
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