Margaret Cho (1968)

 early life

Cho was born into a Korean family in San Francisco, California. She grew up in a racially diverse neighborhood in the 1970s and 1980s, which she described as a community of "old hippies, ex-druggies, burn-outs from the '60s, drag queens, Chinese people, and Koreans. To say it was a melting pot — that's the least of it. It was a really confusing, enlightening, wonderful time."

Cho's parents, Young-Hie and Seung-Hoon Cho, ran Paperback Traffic, a bookstore on Polk Street at California Street in San Francisco. Her father writes joke books and a newspaper column in Seoul, South Korea. After Cho expressed an interest in performance, she auditioned and was accepted into the San Francisco School of the Arts, an area arts high school. While at the school, she became involved with the school's improvisational comedy group alongside actor Sam Rockwell.

 early career

After doing several shows in a club adjacent to her parents' bookstore, Cho launched a stand-up career and spent several years developing her material in clubs. Cho's career began to build after appearances on television and university campuses. In 1992, she appeared on the unsuccessful Golden Girls spin-off The Golden Palace in a small role. In 1994, Cho won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comedian. In 2010, on The View, she discussed her nervousness about doing The Golden Palace and thanked the late Rue McClanahan for her help with rehearsing. Also in the early years of her career, she secured a coveted spot as opening act for Jerry Seinfeld and was featured on a Bob Hope special. She was also a frequent visitor to The Arsenio Hall Show.

 film career

In late 2004, Cho began work on her first self-written film in which she starred. Bam Bam and Celeste, a low-budget comedy about a "fag hag" and her gay best friend, co-starred Cho's friend and co-touring act Bruce Daniels. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. On Valentine's Day of 2004, Cho spoke at the Marriage Equality Rally at the California State Capitol. Her speech can be seen in the documentary Freedom to Marry.

 personal life

In 1994 Cho was in a relationship with Quentin Tarantino and he appeared in the Pulp Fiction-parody episode of her All American Girl sitcom, Pulp Sitcom, as Desmond, a bootleg-video salesman.

Cho married Al Ridenour, an artist involved in the production of Cacophony Society and the Art of Bleeding, in 2003. Margaret was featured in an Art of Bleeding performance in March 2006. In a Bond interview, she reveals that her marriage is "very conventional and conservative, I think. I mean we're such weird people that people just can't imagine that we would have a conventional marriage. But, yeah, we are very conventional."

Cho began getting major tattoo work done in 2006 and has become an enthusiast; as of March 2007 she estimates that 15–20% of her body is currently tattooed.

As of 2009, Cho lives in Peachtree City, Georgia, as Drop Dead Diva is filmed in the Atlanta area.

She is openly bisexual.