Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho was born in 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 above the bookstore her parents ran. Soon after, she won a comedy contest where first prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld. Cho moved to Los Angeles in the early '90s and 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. She performed over 300 concerts within 2 years and subsequently won the American Comedy Award for Female Comedian in 1994. Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special and, seemingly overnight, Cho became a national celebrity.

Her ground-breaking and controversial, yet short-lived ABC sitcom, All-American Girl, soon followed. About the sitcom, Cho had to say: "There were just so many people involved in that show, and so much importance put on the fact that it was an ethnic show. It's hard to pin down what "ethnic" is without appearing to be racist. And then, for fear of being too "ethnic," it got so watered down for television that by the end, it was completely lacking in the essence of what I am and what I do."

In 1999, Cho's hugely successful Off-Broadway show, I'm The One That I Want, toured the country, was made into a hit movie and became a bestselling book. Her following show, The Notorious C.H.O., also became a successful movie. Cho is currently on tour in her latest show, Revolution.

Cho has received awards from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), American Women in Radio and Television, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, California NOW, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and the Asian American Legal Defense Education Fund (AALDEF).