What can you tell me about Margaret Cho? Was she always funny?
—Patrick Ridgeway, Flagstaff, Ariz.
Cho, 44, who stars as Teri Lee on TV’s “Drop Dead Diva,” was born in San Francisco, Calif., where her parents ran a Haight Street bookstore in the ’70s and her father wrote joke books in Korean. “Real corny stuff,” says the in-your-face standup comedian about her dad’s sense of humor. Cho attended the San Francisco School of the Arts, where she joined an improv comedy troupe and performed standup at a club near her parents’ shop. Early on she won a contest where first prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld.