House Of Bond stars Adrienne Pickering as Eileen Bond and Ben Mingay as Alan Bond. Picture: Supplied/Nine

The flamboyant ex-wife of the late Alan Bond has dubbed Rake favourite Adrienne Pickering, cast to play her in the Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder miniseries as a “good sort in a great cast” which began filming in Sydney this week.

Eileen ‘Red’ Bond will be played by Rake star Adrienne Pickering. Picture: SuppliedSource:News Limited

Pickering with Ben Mingay who plays lead Alan Bond. Picture: NineSource:Supplied

Giving her verdict to News Corp Australia from a seat in a South Perth hair salon, Bond’s wife of 37 years, Red said her family was bracing for the small screen version of his life and times — especially because they’d played no part in developing the TV story.

“We haven’t been contacted by anybody from the production about it, we don’t know what they’re going to do ... just let us know when it’s on so we can all leave town” she said, fearful after the legal scandal which plagued a previous telemovie on another West Australian success story, Gina Rinehart.

Despite being a ratings success for the network, Nine’s 2015 telemovie, House Of Hancock was forced to make changes to the two-parter about the mining magnate, her late father Lang and his mistress, Rose Porteous.

House Of Bond stars Rachael Taylor as Diana Bliss. Picture: Supplied/Nine.Source:Supplied

Ms Rinehart sought an emergency court injunction to block broadcast of the series, before negotiating to “agreed edits” to the original program and an additional disclaimer telling viewers the story had been “fictionalised.”

The first Mrs Bond, who lives in Hertfordshire, England but is in Australia to visit family and friends, said of the telemovie: “hopefully it will be entertaining as there were many entertaining moments mixed with a multitude of others.”

The lead role of Bond will be played by Wonderland actor Ben Mingay, while Rachael Taylor has been cast as his tragic late wife and theatre producer Diana Bliss, who took her own life in 2012.

Peaky Blinders star Sam Neill, who played Lang Hancock, will play Bond’s corporate nemesis, Roland ‘Tiny’ Rowland, the British business man who exposed Bond’s insolvency.

Ben Mingay as Alan Bond and Sam Neill as Roland 'Tiny' Rowland. Picture: NineSource:Supplied

Red said Mingay shared a resemblance to her ex-husband “in his younger days, I guess.”

In confirming the cast earlier this week, a Nine statement said the drama would tell “the outrageous tale of Australia’s most controversial tycoon, whose excesses ran to women, fame, money, crime and everything in between,” and was “the rags-to-riches tale that will expose Alan “Bondy” Bond’s incredible rise and spectacular fall in the 1970s and 80s as the cheeky, knockabout “Ten Pound Pom” who fought his way from the back alleys of Fremantle to become the richest man in Australia and one of our greatest sporting heroes for winning the America’s Cup. Was Bond a hero? A villain? Or a little bit of both?

The series will also star Gyton Grantley, Samantha Jade, Anne Looby, John Howard, Johnny

Ruffo, Roy Billing, Paul Gleeson and Jack Campbell.

It was written by Sarah Smith, whose previous credits include Winter, Rescue Special Ops, Dripping in Chocolate.

Email: holly.byrnes@news.com.au

Twitter: @byrnesh