Starting out in property, he became the best known of a group of Western Australian entrepreneurs who flew high in the 1980s, then crashed in flames, earning their state the reputation of a corporate Wild West.
However, it is Bond's never-say-die efforts to win yachting's most coveted prize that will probably be his most lasting legacy.
Making its fourth attempt in 10 years, his syndicate wrested the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club, taking it out of the United States for the first time in the race's 132-year history. It prompted such wild celebrations in Australia that then Prime Minister Bob Hawke declared "any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum".
It was not just an epic sporting victory, but a moment when Australia "came of age" on the international stage, some say. Embodying Australia's underdog grit and spirit of can-do enterprise, the win lifted the nation's mood at a time of economic gloom and and heralded the boom years that lay ahead.
After seizing the Cup - which New Zealand went on to win in 1995 and 2000 - "was there anything I couldn't do?" demanded Bond in one interview.
Already named Australian of the Year in 1978, for his valiant earlier attempts to end the US's stranglehold, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (OA) in 1984 - an honour awarded for "distinguished service of a high degree to Australia or humanity at large".
He founded the country's first private university, Bond University on Queensland's Gold Coast, and attempted to create one of the world's biggest gold mines, the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie, WA.
Perhaps sporting success and adulation - crowned by a series of ever more daring corporate raids - went to Bond's head. In 1987, three weeks after the stock market crash, he shocked the art world by buying Van Gogh's Irises for US$54 million ($75.8 million). It was the most ever paid for a painting, and well over the odds.
The same year, he paid an exorbitant A$1.05 billion for Kerry Packer's Nine Network - and, only two years later, was forced to sell it back for just A$300 million. "You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime and I've had mine," crowed a jubilant Packer.
With the Bond Corporation drowning in debt, Bond tried to rescue it by siphoning off A$1.2 billion from Bell Resources, which he had acquired after the death of fellow WA businessman Robert Holmes a Court.
The fraud earned him a seven-year jail term, to be served concurrently with another sentence he had already received for a dodgy deal relating to the Manet painting La Promenade. Stripped of his OA, Bond ended up serving four years. Bell investors, many of whom lost their life savings, were left with only half a cent in the dollar.
Meanwhile, after getting divorced in 1990 from his first wife, Eileen, with whom he had four children, Bond married Diana Bliss, a theatre producer, in 1995. However, he remained close to Eileen, even celebrating Christmases with both wives.
After being released from prison in 2000, Bond re-entered Australia's rich list in 2008, with an estimated wealth of A$265 million, thanks to investments in diamond mining and oil companies in Africa.
His later years were touched by tragedy. In 2012, Bliss, who had suffered from depression, was found dead at the couple's home. Bond's daughter, Susanne, was found dead in her home in the upmarket Perth suburb of Peppermint Grove in 2000 from an accidental prescription drug overdose.
Bond had returned to Australia from England for the heart operation last Tuesday. But he never regained consciousness following the surgery and was placed on life support.
In a statement yesterday, his surviving children - John, Craig and Jody Fewster - acknowledge that "to a lot of people, dad was a larger than life character".
One of WA's leading financial commentators, Tim Treadgold, called Bond's death "the end of an era".
Life and times
English-born businessman Alan Bond was a celebrated symbol of Australia's can-do enterprise, with a stunning rise to prominence beginning in 1959. It was all going so well, until it wasn't. Bankruptcy, fraud convictions and four years in prison were all part and parcel of one of Perth's most infamous adopted sons.
Highlights
Bond Corporation
A company which began as a simple sign-writing business soon grew to one that brewed most of the beer in Australia. Alongside local assets, the Bond Corporation also acquired interests abroad, including the St Moritz Hotel in New York and the Lippo skyrise complex in Hong Kong. The corporation also provided a vehicle for Bond to purchase Van Gogh's Irises for US$54 million ($75.8 million) and to bankroll Australia's America's Cup bids.
The 1983 America's Cup Victory
John Bertrand may have been the skipper, but it was Bond's money that played a crucial role in Australia II's historic bid to break the longest streak in world sport. Bond bankrolled the 1983 challenge as part of a syndicate, as well as three previous bids.
Australian of the Year
Bankrolling Australia's first two challenges at the America's Cup proved the catalyst for the businessman to be named Australian of the Year in 1978 (alongside Galarrwuy Yunupingu). The honour would be fleeting. It was stripped from him in 1997 when revelations of his corporate criminality came to light.
Lowlights
Spiralling debt and bankruptcy
Bond's financial trouble began to emerge in 1989, when English businessman Roland "Tiny" Rowland exposed his business empire in a 93-page document that showed it was insolvent and trading illegally. Bond was declared bankrupt in 1992, with personal debts of A$1.8 billion ($1.9 billion).
Fraud convictions
The first inklings of Bond's underhanded dealings began in 1991 when he was convicted (later acquitted) for theft. It would be a brief reprieve, with Bond jailed in 1996 for four years for stealing A$1 billion from Bell Resources to prop up his failing business empire. That, along with three years for a dodgy art deal and a raft of other convictions, made him the biggest fraudster in Australian history.
Personal tragedies
Bond's eldest daughter, Susanne, 41, was found dead in her home in the upmarket Perth suburb of Peppermint Grove in 2000 from an accidental prescription drug overdose. Just over a decade later, his second wife Diana Bliss suffered a depressive illness for months before being found dead in the swimming pool of the couple's Perth home in 2012.
- NZ Herald, AAP
