Margaret Cho, giving credit where it's due, says it was Jerry Seinfeld who convinced her to become a professional comedian, she's told the Associated Press. San Francisco native Cho, 33, whose stand-up concert film "The Notorious C.H.O." opens on July 3 in New York and in Los Angeles on Friday, won a college comedy contest years ago. First prize was being the opening act for another comic on the rise, Seinfeld. This was some time before he hit TV with his own series. (You may be familiar with it.) Back then, Cho recalled recently to the AP, "he told me that I was so good that if I decided to drop out of school and be a comedian that I would be very successful." Drop out on Seinfeld's advice she did, and more than a dozen years passed before their two paths would cross again. "He came to my show in 1999 and he was just so thrilled for me," she told the news service. "He gave me the biggest compliment that I think I've ever received. He said, 'You know, you're better than Pryor in his prime.'"