How Did I Get Here?

Margaret Cho

Comedian
from
  • Education
  • San Francisco School of the Arts
  • Work Experience
  • 1987–90
    Salesperson, Stormy Leather, San Francisco
  • 1988–93
    Stand-up comic
  • 1993–95
    Producer, star of All-American Girl, ABC
  • 1995–2004
    Stand-up comic, author
  • 2004–05
    Screenwriter, star of Bam Bam and Celeste
  • 2005–15
    Stand-up comic, concert host
  • 2008
    Executive producer, star, The Cho Show, VH1
  • 2014–Present
    Recording artist, executive producer, stand-up comic
  • Life Lessons
  • “If it’s painful, you’re learning something.”
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  • “Respect your audience. It’s a big deal for somebody to come see you.”
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  • “Let it go. Whatever it is, let it go.”
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  • With her mother, 1970s
    “I had flaming pink and orange hair, so I was visually loud but never said a word. I was a terrible student—I just didn’t go to class. I dropped out senior year, 1986.”
  • “I was considered too fat to play the role of myself, which was absurd. We shot 19 episodes. It was my big break, and when it was canceled, it was just devastating.”
  • With Richard Jeni (left) and Bruce Vilanch at Comic Relief, 1995
  • “It’s about two misfit kids on a road trip. I was encouraged to make the movie by Quentin Tarantino, who was my boyfriend in the ’90s.”
  • “It was a docu-series, like the Kardashians. If it had happened a few years later, the show would’ve lasted longer.”
  • “American Myth, out April 29, is the first album I’ve composed music for. It’s rock ’n’ roll, and I’m really proud. I have Highland, a show about a family that runs a marijuana dispensary that I’m co-creating for Amazon. And I’m touring.”
  • As a guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, 2015
  • “I did sets at this club, Holy City Zoo, and Robin Williams would come perform. It was such a nightmare to be a teenager and follow Robin Williams.”
  • “I was doing comedy, drinking a lot, and being pretty self-destructive. Then I did a show about all that, I’m the One That I Want, which was very successful and turned into my first book.”
    At the Comedy Hall of Fame, 1990
  • “I did half a dozen tours and hosted True Colors, Cyndi Lauper’s tour. I got to be with people that I’d idolized—Joan Jett, Debbie Harry, the Indigo Girls—and watch great rock shows. I went on between every act and learned how to do large-arena audiences.”
  • Starting in 2015, Cho became Special Co-host for Fashion Police on E!
  • The album from her 2002 one-woman show, Notorious C.H.O.