Biography
Sig Ruman was a German-American character actor. Born Siegfried Carl Alban Rumann in Hamburg, Germany, on 11 October 1884, he studied electrical engineering before serving in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. He emigrated to the United States in 1924 and appeared in numerous Broadway productions.
Ruman made his film debut in Lucky Boy (1929) and went on to appear in more than 100 films. He played Gottlieb in A Night at the Opera (1935), Comrade Iranoff in Ninotchka (1939), Colonel Ehrhardt in To Be or Not to Be (1942), Johann Schulz in Stalag 17 (1953), and Eric Von Bissell in an episode of The Addams Family (1964). He also appeared in A Day at the Races (1937), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), White Christmas (1954), One, Two, Three (1961) and The Fortune Cookie (1966).
Ruman died of a heart attack in Julian, California, on 14 February 1967.
