Margaret Cho

**Margaret Moran Cho** (born December 5, 1968) is an American comedian, actress, LGBT social activist, and musician. She is known for her stand-up routines, through which she critiques social and political problems, especially regarding race and sexuality. She rose to prominence after starring in the ABC sitcom *All-American Girl* (1994–95), and became an established stand-up comic in the subsequent years. She portrays Ms. Chen in *Prom Pact*.

## Early life and later

Cho was born in 1968 to a family of Korean origin in San Francisco, California. Her paternal grandfather Myung-sook Cho, a Christian minister, worked for the Japanese as a station master during their occupation of Korea. When Japan withdrew from Korea at the end of World War II, he was denounced as a traitor by North Korea's Communist regime, and was forced to move with his family, including his son, her father Seung-hoon Cho, to South Korea. During the Korean War, Myung-sook ran an orphanage in Seoul. According to Margaret herself, she "grew up in the church." She was raised in a racially diverse neighborhood near the Ocean Beach section of San Francisco, which she described as a community of "old hippies, ex-druggies, burn-outs from the 1960s, 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.

At school, Cho was bullied, saying that "I was hurt because I was different, and so sharing my experience of being beaten and hated and called fat and queer and foreign and perverse and gluttonous and lazy and filthy and dishonest and yet all the while remaining invisible heals me, and heals others when they hear it – those who are suffering right now."

Between the ages of five and twelve, Cho was "sexually molested by a family friend". On the Loveline May 21, 1997, show with Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky, she talks about being raped by her uncle, while during the same time period he was raping his three-year-old daughter. She often skipped class and got bad grades in ninth and tenth grades, resulting in her expulsion from Lowell High School. Cho said she was "raped continuously through my youngest years" (by another acquaintance), and that when she told someone else about it and her classmates found out, she received hostile remarks justifying it, including accusations of being "so fat" that only a crazy person would have sex with her.

After Cho expressed an interest in performance, she auditioned and was accepted into the San Francisco School of the Arts, a San Francisco public high school for the arts. While at the school, she became involved with the school's improvisational comedy group alongside actors Sam Rockwell and Aisha Tyler.

At age 15, she worked as a phone sex operator, and she later worked as a dominatrix. After graduating from high school, Cho attended San Francisco State University, studying drama; she did not graduate.

## Career

### 1994–97: Early stand-up and *All-American Girl*

After doing several shows in a club adjacent to her parents' bookstore, Cho launched a stand-up comedy 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. She also secured a coveted spot as opening act for Jerry Seinfeld; at about this time, she was featured on a Bob Hope special, and was also a frequent visitor to *The Arsenio Hall Show.*

That same year, ABC developed and aired a sitcom based on Cho's stand-up routine. The show, titled *All-American Girl,* was initially promoted as the first show prominently featuring an East Asian family, although the short lived sitcom *Mr. T and Tina,* which had starred Noriyuki "Pat" Morita as Mr. T., preceded it by nearly two decades.

Cho has expressed subsequent regret for much of what transpired during the production of the show, specifically:

* After network executives, especially executive producer Gail Berman, criticized her appearance and the roundness of her face, Cho starved herself for several weeks. Her rapid weight loss, done to modify her appearance by the time the pilot episode was filmed, caused kidney failure.
* The show suffered criticism from within the U.S. East Asian community over its perception of stereotyping. Producers told Cho at different times during production both that she was "too Asian" and that she was "not Asian enough." At one point during the course of the show, producers hired a coach to teach Cho how to "be more Asian."
* Much of the humor was broad and coarse, and at times, stereotypical portrayals of her close Korean relatives and gay bookshop customers were employed.

The show was canceled after suffering poor ratings and the effect of major content changes over the course of its single season (19 episodes).

After the show's 1995 cancellation, Cho became addicted to drugs and alcohol. As detailed in her 2002 autobiography, *I'm the One That I Want,* in 1995, her substance abuse was evident during a performance in Monroe, Louisiana, where she was booed off the stage by 800 college students after going on the stage drunk.

### 1995–2002: Stand-up, acting, and writing

Though her career and personal life were challenging after the show's cancellation, Cho eventually sobered up, refocused her energy, and developed new material. She hosted the *New Year's Rockin' Eve 95* show with Steve Harvey. In 1997, she had a supporting role in the thriller film *Face/Off* starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, playing Wanda, one of the fellow FBI agents of Travolta's primary character.

In 1999, she wrote about her struggles with *All-American Girl* in her first one-woman show, *I'm the One That I Want.* That year, *I'm the One That I Want* won *New York* magazine's Performance of the Year award and was named one of the Great Performances of the year by *Entertainment Weekly.* At the same time, Cho wrote and published an autobiographical book with the same title, and the show itself was filmed and released as a concert film in 2000. Her material dealt with her difficulties breaking into show business because of her ethnicity and weight and her resulting struggle with and triumph over body image issues and drug and alcohol addiction. Cho also appeared in an episode of the HBO comedy *Sex and the City's* fourth season. The episode, titled "The Real Me," first aired on June 3, 2001, and also guest-starred Heidi Klum.

In 2004, the show *Notorious C.H.O.* (the title was derived from slain rapper The Notorious B.I.G.) referred to the comedian having been reared in 1970s San Francisco and her bisexuality. After completing *Notorious C.H.O.*, she made another stand-up film, *Revolution,* released in 2004, and subsequently 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.*

### 2005–2010: Other projects and television

In 2005, Cho released her second book, *I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight,* a compilation of essays and prose about global politics, human rights, and other topical issues. Cho launched a national book tour in support of the collection. An audio reading of the book was also released. A DVD of a live taping of her *Assassin* tour was released in conjunction with the book. The same year, Cho started promoting and touring with her new show, *Assassin.* The show became her fourth live concert film and premiered on the gay and lesbian premium cable network Here! TV in September 2005. In this DVD, she notably includes herself when talking about gay people, saying "we" and "our community." Posters for *Assassin* featured Cho in paratrooper gear and holding a microphone in the style of an automatic rifle, a reference to the infamous 1974 photo of heiress Patty Hearst.

Cho launched "The Sensuous Woman," a burlesque-style variety show tour, in Los Angeles on August 10, 2007, with tour dates scheduled through November 3, as of October 10. Scheduled tour stops meant to follow Los Angeles were Chicago, Illinois and New York City. On August 10, 2007 the *San Francisco Chronicle* reviewed the show, Cho's work, key events in her personal life and characterized the show thus: "In fact, as bawdy and bad-behaving as the cast gets, the whole show feels more like a crazy family reunion than a performance."

Also in 2007, Cho appeared in The Dresden Dolls' video of their song "Shores of California," which was MCed by Amanda Palmer and in The Cliks's video for "Eyes in the Back of My Head," in which she appeared as Lucas Silveira's lover. She also provided the character voice for a character named Condie Ling on the Logo animated series *Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World.* Her episodes began airing in 2007.

The premiere performance of Cho's "Beautiful" tour was on February 28, 2008, in Sydney, Australia as part of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. Cho was also the Chief of Parade for the festival's annual parade along Oxford Street on March 1. During her stay in Sydney, Cho was filmed shopping for parade outfits in a drag store with Kathy Griffin and Cyndi Lauper for Griffin's Bravo series *My Life on the D-List.* The episode featuring Cho aired on June 26, 2008.

Cho and her family and friends appeared in an episode of NBC's series *Celebrity Family Feud,* which premiered on June 24, 2008. Later that summer, she appeared in her own semi-scripted reality sitcom for VH1, *The Cho Show,* which premiered on August 21, 2008 and lasted one season. She next appeared in the supporting cast of the series *Drop Dead Diva,* which debuted in July 2009.

### 2011–present: Further appearances and tours

In April 2011, Cho guest starred on the comedy *30 Rock* in the episode "Everything Sunny All the Time Always." She portrayed Kim Jong-Il, then the leader of North Korea, that required her to speak both Korean and English. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She later returned to portray Kim Jong-Il's son, Kim Jong-Un. [S:6, E:21] In 2010, Cho was a contestant on the 11th season of *Dancing with the Stars.*

Also in 2011, online human rights awareness project America 2049 had Margaret appear as one of the main characters, whose videos were played as part of the main storyline. The Facebook-interfaced game uses a fictional, fractioned future to highlight today's social inequities.

Since January 2013, Cho has been the co-host of the weekly podcast *Monsters of Talk* along with Jim Short. Cho embarked on her "Mother" tour in the fall of 2013 and slated it for engagements in Europe in 2014. The title of the tour refers not to Cho's impressions of her own mother, but to Cho herself. It is her nickname for the figure she has played to her many gay friends over the years. In 2014, she participated in *Do I Sound Gay?*, a documentary film directed and produced by David Thorpe. The film is about stereotypes of gay men's speech patterns.

In January 2019, Cho competed in season one of *The Masked Singer* as "Poodle". She was eliminated in Episode 4.

In July 2019, Cho started a solo podcast called *The Margaret Cho*, which features guests who primarily work in show business. Guests have included *Queer Eye'*s Jonathan Van Ness, tattooist and reality TV figure Kat Von D, screenwriter Diablo Cody, drag queen Jackie Beat, and comedian and TV host Michael Yo. Cho has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.

In February 2022, she was cast in the documentary series *Everything's Gonna Be All White*, airing on Showtime.

In June 2022, Cho co-starred in a romantic comedy film, *Fire Island*, directed by Andrew Ahn, airing on Hulu

### Personal life

Cho married Al Ridenour, an artist involved in The Cacophony Society and the Art of Bleeding, in 2003. Cho was featured in an Art of Bleeding performance in March 2006. She described her marriage as "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." They were separated in September 2014 and Cho confirmed their separation in December. Cho referred to herself as "divorced" in an April 2015 profile in *The New York Times*, but actually filed for divorce in August 2015. In April 2019 it was reported that the divorce was finalized.

In the early 1990s, Cho dated director Quentin Tarantino.

As of 2008, Cho identified as a Christian. As of 2009, Cho was living in Peachtree City, Georgia, as *Drop Dead Diva* was filmed in the Atlanta area.

Cho is openly bisexual, and has stated that she has had "a lot of experience in the area of polyamory and alternative sexuality in general." When discussing her sexuality in a 2018 *Huffington Post* interview, Cho said, "I don't know using 'bisexual' is right because that indicates that there's only two genders, and I don't believe that. I've been with people all across the spectrum of gender and who have all kinds of different expressions of gender, so it's so hard to say. Maybe 'pansexual' is technically the more correct term but I like 'bisexual' because it's kind of '70s." Cho states that she “loves” Fire Island and spends summers there.

Cho was a guest on comedian Bobby Lee's *Tigerbelly Podcast* Episode 71, which was uploaded on December 16, 2016. In that episode, she recounted an incident between her and actress Tilda Swinton. According to Cho, Swinton contacted her via email to discuss the Asian American community's reaction to the news that Swinton had been cast to play the character Ancient One, who in comic books is Tibetan, in the movie version of Doctor Strange. Cho found the inquiry odd, since she did not know Swinton and had never talked to her before, nor did she have anything to do with the movie or casting. On December 21, Swinton released the email exchange between her and Cho to the website Jezebel. According to Swinton, she had contacted Cho to better understand why Asian Americans were upset about the casting. In response to the release, Cho stated that she stands by her words both on *TigerBelly* and in the email exchange.

Cho revealed in a panel discussion that after doing genealogy testing, she discovered that she had some Chinese ancestry.