Margaret Cho: All-American Pet Girl!
We all know Margaret Cho as a talented actress and brilliant comedian. She also sings, designs clothes, and writes books! She is one busy lady! But, did you know that Margaret is also an animal lover? After many years of rescuing dogs, she added some kitties to her home! She now has three beautiful kitties in her family, and of course, her sweet dog, Lucia!
Rita and Linda were thrilled with the opportunity to chat with Margaret about her life with her beloved pets: Uju the Wolf Cat, her two Sphynx cats Sacre and Sarong, and her Chihuahua, Lucia. She even showed us around her home, which is replete with many special places for her kitties, like the workout room and the food buffet!
Margaret may be a big star, but she's the one caring for her kitties, scooping their boxes and trying to clip those kitty nails! We all know that struggle! We enjoyed learning about Margaret the animal lover, and we know you will, too!
BIO:
Comedian. Actor. Musician. Advocate. Entrepreneur. Artist.
Just a few of the adjectives that describes Margaret Cho, a jack of all trades, master of many. When hasn’t Margaret and her voice been a part of our consciousness? It seems like she’s always been here, lighting the path for other women, other members of underrepresented groups, other performers, to follow.
Margaret was born and raised in San Francisco, an experience that she can say with all sincerity helped to shape her world-view. “There were old hippies, ex-druggies, burnouts, drag queens, and Chinese people. It was a really confusing, enlightening, wonderful time.”
Right as she was starting her stand-up career at age 14, Margaret won a comedy contest to open for Jerry Seinfeld in the early ’90s. She soon moved to Los Angeles and, still in her twenties, hit the college circuit, where she became the most booked act in the market and garnered a nomination for “Campus Comedian of The Year.” She performed over 300 concerts within two years. Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special and, seemingly overnight, Margaret Cho became a household name.
2019 and 2020 saw Margaret jump back in to acting roles. She kicked off ’19 as the Poodle on the first Season of the wildly successful show The Masked Singer on FOX, appeared in a 2019 episode of Law & Order: SVU and an episode of HBO’s critically acclaimed series High Maintenance. In 2020, Margaret appeared in three films – she played a ruthless Hollywood movie studio exec in Faith Based, “Fairy Gay Mother 1” in Friendsgiving, starring Kat Dennings and Malin Akerman, and “Auntie Ling” in Netflix’s first major animated film, Over the Moon, which Vulture called “one of the most gorgeous animated films ever made.” As if she wasn’t exercising that artistic muscle enough, she launched her own podcast, “The Margaret Cho,” where the first part is a chat with a celebrity friend you already know and the second part is with an up-and-coming artist you may not know yet.
With so much success in her creative life, Margaret still finds time to support the causes that are important to her. She is incredibly active in anti-racism, anti-bullying, and gay rights campaigns. She was the recipient of the Victory Fund’s Leadership Award, the first-ever Best Comedy Performance Award at the Asian Excellence Awards, the First Amendment Award from the ACLU of Southern California, and the Intrepid Award from the National Organization for Women (NOW). Margaret has been honored by GLAAD, American Women in Radio and Television, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), PFLAG and LA Pride, who gave Margaret a Lifetime Achievement Award for leaving a lasting imprint on the LGBT community.
Margaret was honored by the She Rocks Awards in January, 2021. The award credits women who display unique talent and leadership within the music industry. Previous award recipients include Melissa Etheridge, Pat Benatar, Suzi Quattro, Chaka Khan, Ronnie Spector and more. It seems only fitting that Margaret should start the new year alongside some other bad ass women.