Mara Elizabeth Wilson was born on Friday, July 24th, 1987 in Los Angeles, California. She is the oldest daughter of Michael and Suzie Wilson, with three elder brothers - Danny (b. 1979), Jon (b. 1981) and Joel (b. 1983) - and a younger sister Anna (b. 1993). When Mara was 5 years old, her eldest brother Daniel Ben Wilson (Danny) started acting in television commercials and she wanted to follow in his footsteps. Her parents refused to let her act at first. After continuous persistence from Mara Elizabeth, her parents reluctantly agreed to let her give acting a try. She went on to appear in a number of commercials, including those advertising Texaco and the Bank of America. She also appeared in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), starring Robin Williams and Sally Field, as the divorced parents. In her role, Mara proved herself to be a talented young actress, who was mature for her tender years, and her acting career went from strength-to-strength as she quickly became a favorite among cinema-goers. The following year, Mara played a small girl whose mother had suffered a major stroke in A Time to Heal (1994). But her big break came with the remake of Miracle on 34th Street (1994), as the little, intelligent, cynical girl who learned the magic of Santa Claus. Ironically, Mara was not raised to believe in Santa Claus but this was a bonus in some ways since she was able to empathize with her character's stance that there was no Santa.