Mallik is the daughter of
barrister Jay Paul Mallik, son of
Manmath Chandra Mallik. Miller's adaptation of
Lewis Carroll’s mid-19th century fantasy, with its star-studded cast and
gothic and
bohemian overtones, created quite a stir at the time. Miller had envisaged an Alice "with no stage experience, not very pretty but curiously plain, sallow and a bit priggish". After advertising the part, he cast Mallik within twenty minutes of meeting her, having asked her (as Mallik recalled) to recite the poem "
You Are Old, Father William" which Alice performs for the
Caterpillar. Miller's first impression of her was of a "rather extraordinary, solemn child" who proved to be "naturally expressive" and "not amused by anything [she was] surrounded by". In similar, though less complimentary, vein, the biographer of
Peter Cook, who played the
Mad Hatter, has described Mallik's Alice as "a sullen, pouting,
pubescent with no sense of bewilderment", noting also that, in his view, "the whole piece was strangely lacking in either humour or fear". Mallik's return to obscurity after
Alice was such that, in 1986, the BBC had difficulty tracking her down to pay a repeat fee. She was, by then, a naval wife, living in
Southsea, and was located only after a newspaper reader recognised a photograph of her. A
DVD of
Alice was released by the
British Film Institute in 2003 and, in 2012, Mallik appeared in conversation with Miller (their first meeting since 1966) in a BBC
Arena programme about Miller's life and work. Among other things, Mallik recalled that, making
Alice, she was not awed by the distinguished cast because she had been used to mingling with friends of her "much older" parents who had achieved distinction in their careers. ==Family and later career==