The Revenge Of Cho

Stand-up comic Margaret Cho has been working the comedy club circuit since she was 16. Now an older, wiser 30, she has a new one-woman show called I'm the one that I want. CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen. reports.

"It was very difficult and you know that is what my show is about now, the struggles that I went through in doing my show. And the whole situation was about the fact that I sold out, that I sold myself out way too cheaply. I should have held out for more money from the devil," she says, laughing.

Margaret started performing stand-up in a comedy club called The Rose & Thistle above a bookstore her parents ran in San Francisco. Soon after, she won a comedy contest in which first prize was a gig opening for Jerry Seinfeld. In the early '90s she moved to Los Angeles and, after more than 300 performances on college campuses in two years, won the American Comedy Award for Female Comedian in 1994.

Seemingly overnight, Margaret Cho became a national celebrity. Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special. Her ground-breaking and controversial All American Girl soon followed.

"The network is concerned about you. They are concerned about the fullness of your face. You have to go on a diet," she says in her stand-up. Despite Cho's best efforts to lose weight and mold herself into a conventional TV star, her show was cancelled.

Soon after, she says, she fell into a deep depression and "Did what was pretty impossible for Asian people to do--became an alcoholic. And that's not easy, because we can't drink," she adds.

But after being scared straight and recovering from addiction, Margaret Cho turned her journey into theater.

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