 There was originally supposed to be a storyline which included  Gracies mother. In the first scene after young Gracie gets in  trouble for beating up the two boys, her mother was called in to the  school to reprimand her daughter. The story behind her mother was  that she was a top FBI agent who was killed in the line of duty and  Gracie became an agent to make her mother proud. This was cut  because director Donald Petrie (qv) thought the whole story was  too much and that Sandra Bullock (qv) was already bringing enough  sympathy to the character without having to bring in another  storyline.