F. Ross Johnson, who as chief executive of RJR Nabisco instigated an era-defining takeover struggle that was chronicled in film and a best-selling book and made him a symbol of corporate greed, died on Thursday at his home in Jupiter, Fla. He was 85.

The cause was pneumonia, a spokesman for his family said.

Known for lavish expense accounts and for surrounding himself with sports stars and other celebrities, Mr. Johnson cut the biggest profile among a breed of executives who with little company loyalty waged war on the traditional business order in the financial world’s roaring 1980s.

“He did the biggest deals, had the biggest mouth and enjoyed the biggest perks,” Bryan Burrough and John Helyar wrote in “Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco,” a detailed 1990 examination of Mr. Johnson’s signature gamble.

The auction of RJR Nabisco, a white-hot, debt-fueled competition that Mr. Johnson’s management group lost in October and November 1988, became the biggest corporate takeover to that point. It began as the most ambitious leveraged buyout ever attempted and resulted in a $25 billion victory by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company.