Marvez was born in Miami, Florida in 1962 to a half-Cuban, half-Puerto Rican mother and a Venezuelan father.[3] Her father was married five times and her mother four, including twice to each other.[4] She began her career performing live stand-up comedy at cabarets and clubs in Miami's South Beach neighborhood. Marvez has said she became a comic as "a defense mechanism for me. I'm part of the dinged-up, jacked-up people....my dad was manic-depressive, and I think kids inherently try to provide what's missing to the household … so I became a comedian because it was the fastest route. It worked faster than any pill when my dad was in a bad way. It was very powerful. As a little kid, it was intoxicating to have that kinda power over an adult."[3]
She was told early on "that I would never be booked because people don't want to hear crazy stuff out of a pretty face," Marvez said. "Back when I started some 25 years ago, there were no attractive women in comedy and telling it like it is. It was the unprettiest thing."[5] She has since performed in comedy specials on Showtime, HBO and Amazon Prime, as well as Comedy Central, ABC, CBS, PBS[6] and her own channel on YouTube. She has also written material for Disney, NBCUniversal and Dick Wolf Productions.[7]
During the 2000s Marvez worked in radio, first at San Diego's KFMB-AM and then at KFBG, then known as "100.7 Jack FM."[8] She says, "I was literally plucked off the stand-up stage. I'd never done any type of radio." She left radio in 2010, saying that "Radio kind of dulled me a little bit. I was a lot more sharp-witted when I was on the road. So my contract ended in March, and as much as I love the steady gig, and as much as I love the money that comes with the steady gig, it gets to being too much like a job … and I didn’t become a comedian to have a job. Being a comedian is a calling, not a job."[3]
