Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho was born Dec. 5, 1968 and raised in San Francisco. Her grandfather was a Methodist minister who ran an orphanage in Seoul during the Korean War. Ignoring the traditions of her patriarchal culture, her mother bravely resisted an arranged marriage in Korea and married Margaret's father who writes joke books - in Korean. Cho started performing stand-up at age 16 in a comedy club called The Rose & Thistle above a bookstore her parents ran. Soon after, she won a comedy contest where first prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld. She moved to Los Angeles in the early '90s and lived in a house with several other young performers. Still in her early twenties, Cho hit the college circuit, where she immediately became the most booked act in the market and garnered a nomination for Campus Comedian of The Year. Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special and, seemingly overnight, Margaret Cho became a national celebrity. In 1994, she starred in a short-lived ABC sitcom called All-American Girl. In 1999, Cho chronicled her experience on the sitcom in an off Broadway one-woman show called I'm The One That I Want. The show was extremely well received, toured the U.S, and was made into a concert film and a best-selling book of the same name. After the success of her first show, Cho launched Notorious C.H.O. MORE