Mr. Ohlmeyer, who was also a chain-smoker, was encouraged through an intervention to enter the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for a month of alcohol rehabilitation. He then returned to NBC.

In 1998, Mr. Ohlmeyer feuded with Norm Macdonald, the sardonic comedian and anchor of the “Weekend Update” news segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Mr. Ohlmeyer said Mr. Macdonald was not funny in the role and had him removed from the segment and replaced by Colin Quinn. Mr. Macdonald continued to appear in sketches in a few more shows that season, his last with “S.N.L.”

Mr. Macdonald cast his exile as an overreaction by Mr. Ohlmeyer to his “Weekend Update” jokes about O. J. Simpson, who was a close friend of Mr. Ohlmeyer’s. After the arrest of Mr. Simpson in the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman and during his trial, Mr. Ohlmeyer stood by him, saying he would never abandon a friend. He said he had never told anyone to lay off Mr. Simpson, whether at “Saturday Night Live” or “The Tonight Show.”

When Mr. Ohlmeyer stepped down from NBC in 1999, he told The Los Angeles Times: “There’s two reasons to do this job. One is you desperately want and need to win. The other is you care about what people say about you in the press, and what people say about you at cocktail parties.”

He added, “And they are mutually exclusive.”

Donald Winfred Ohlmeyer Jr. was born in New Orleans on Feb. 3, 1945. His mother, the former Eva Bivens, was a physical education teacher who influenced his interest in sports. Donald Sr. was a chemist and brewmaster. The family later moved to Glenview, Ill., where Don Jr. went to high school. While attending the University of Notre Dame, he made money hustling pool in local bars.

One night, he won $200 from an ABC Sports director, who then hired him as a $25-a-day gofer for a coming Notre Dame-Purdue football game. Mr. Ohlmeyer received similar assignments around the Midwest from ABC, hitchhiking to events from the Notre Dame campus, in South Bend, Ind.