Phil Hymes, a veteran lighting director who became a major, if irascible, backstage figure with “Saturday Night Live” for his strong opinions about stagecraft he liked and comedy he disliked, died on July 29 in a Manhattan hospital. He was 96.

His son, Jeff, said the cause was complications of bladder cancer.

“He was a force to be reckoned with, and his presence and strength were something I came to rely on,” Lorne Michaels, the longtime executive producer of “S.N.L.,” said in a statement. “He will be missed, but if God has him now, despite all the arguing, heaven will be much better lit.”

Mr. Hymes joined “Saturday Night Live” in 1976, in its second season, bringing with him decades of experience at NBC, much of it spent in live programming beginning in the early 1950s.

He remained with the show until early 2018, after nearly 42 years of putting up lights and designing the look they gave to sketches, monologues and musical numbers.