The Cast of Characters

ROSS JOHNSON. A native of Canada, the RJR Nabisco president, 56, has always risen to the top. In 1985, as head of Nabisco Brands, he advocated the merger between that company and RJR Reynolds. Just three years later, as head of RJR, Johnson apparently changed his mind. In October he and a group of top managers offered shareholders $17.6 billion to take the company private, a price they later increased to $22.7 billion.

HENRY KRAVIS. With his reputation as the No. 1 leveraged-buyout specialist on the line, he was not about to let RJR Nabisco go private unless he consummated the deal. A founding partner in the buyout firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the Manhattan socialite, 44, countered Johnson's proposal by offering to pay as much as $21.6 billion for the Atlanta-based company. As RJR's new owner, Kravis, whose firm also controls Beatrice and Safeway Stores, would probably keep the food divisions and sell the tobacco business.

JAY PRITZKER. The publicity-shy chairman of the Hyatt Corp., Pritzker, 66, with his brother Robert, 62, surprised both Kravis and Johnson by joining the First Boston investment firm in an informal last-minute bid for RJR Nabisco valued at as much as $27 billion. Allied with the Pritzkers is Philip Anschutz of Denver, a billionaire oil and mining magnate. They have since combined forces with an acknowledged master of the hostile game, HARRY GRAY, 69, the taciturn former chairman of United Technologies, who heads his own investment firm. The First Boston group is offering a highly complex package of cash, securities and stock warrants, which is still only a hazy proposal rather than a firm bid. The sheer size of First Boston's bid persuaded RJR's board to give the group until Nov. 29 to make the offer more concrete. If successful, the high-rolling group would probably keep RJR's tobacco business and sell its food groups to such consumer-product companies as Ralston Purina and Procter & Gamble.