HOLLYWOOD, July 12— David Begelman was removed today as chairman and chief executive officer of United Artists, the second major movie studio he has been forced to leave.
Mr. Begelman resigned under pressure from Columbia Pictures in 1978 some months after he had been accused of embezzling $61,008 from Columbia by forging checks and of taking an additional $23,000 in improperly documented expenses. He pleaded no contest to those charges.
Although no reason was given for his latest departure, most of the 11 films that were made by United Artists under Mr. Begelman's leadership have failed to make money at the box office.
He had been hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - which later bought United Artists - in January 1980 because of his box-office successes as president of Columbia Pictures, particularly the space film ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind.''
The ouster of the 60-year-old Mr. Begelman from United Artists had been expected since February, when Frank Rothman, a top Hollywood lawyer, was brought in as Mr. Begelman's superior.
Mr. Begelman, who earned more than $500,000 a year, had spent $150 million in the last 26 months on a string of movies, most of them commercial failures. They included ''All the Marbles,'' ''Cannery Row,'' ''Buddy Buddy,'' ''Whose Life Is It, Anyway?'' and ''Pennies From Heaven.'' Of the 11 movies put into production by Mr. Begelman that have been released so far, only ''Poltergeist'' is a solid hit. Results are still unclear on ''Diner'' and ''Victor, Victoria.''
Mr. Rothman is chairman and chief executive officer of the M-G-M/U.A. Entertainment Company, which owns the United Artists film division that Mr. Begelman headed. Mr. Rothman said in a statement today that, ''effective immediately, M-G-M/U.A. and David Begelman have concluded'' their relationship. Mr. Begelman did not return telephone calls from reporters seeking comment.
Mr. Begelman had come to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in January 1980 with a mandate to make it a major movie studio again. ''My commission,'' he said at the time, ''is to restore M-G-M to the glory days of Mayer and Thalberg.'' Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were pioneer Hollywood executives who helped build M-G-M into a powerful studio.
A few months after M-G-M acquired United Artists in May 1981, Mr. Begelman was named chairman and chief executive officer of that studio, reportedly against his will. It was a lateral move from the presidency of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then the principal movie company in the M-G-M organization. The reasons for the transfer were never publicly disclosed.
Mr. Begelman's departure from United Artists comes just a month or two before the publication of a book about the Columbia scandal, ''Indecent Exposure,'' written by David McClintick, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Unauthorized galley proofs of the book, which goes into detail about the scandal - dubbed ''Begelgate'' by the film industry -have been widely circulated in Hollywood in recent weeks.
The details of the book indicate that Alan J. Hirschfield, formerly president of Columbia Pictures and Mr. Begelman's boss when the embezzlement occurred, had made his files available to Mr.McClintick to get his side of the story told. In bitter corporate infighting, Mr. Hirschfield was discharged from Columbia as an aftermath of the scandal. He is now chairman of 20th Century-Fox.
Mr. Rothman and Frank Rosenfelt, vice chairman and chief operating officer of M-G-M/U.A. Entertainment, said Mr. Begelman's duties would be assumed temporarily by Donald Sipes, president of the M-G-M Film Corporation, another subsidiary of M-G-M/U.A.
For several months it has been rumored that Frank Yablans, an independent producer who was formerly president of Paramount Pictures, would replace Mr. Begelman. Mr. Rothman has denied that rumor and did so again today by adding that the person who replaces Mr. Begelman would not be someone whose name has ''surfaced prominently in the media.''
Asked to comment on what effect Mr. Begelman's departure would be likely to have on M-G-M/U.A. stock, Dennis Forst, analyst of the leisure-time field for Bateman, Eichler in Los Angeles, said: ''It may help. It removes some controversy and fingers a scapegoat'' for the poor performance of M-G-M./U.A pictures. The stock rose 1/4 point, to close at 6 3/4, in today's trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
M-G-M/U.A. stock recently had a small flurry with the box-office success of ''Rocky III,'' a film with which Mr. Begelman was not connected, and the good results of ''Poltergeist.'' However, M-G-M/U.A. has a total long-term debt of nearly $650 million, with annual interest charges of $100 million.
Those problems are not of Mr. Begelman's making. They came with the M-G-M purchase of United Artists for $380 million in 1981. Kirk Kerkorian, M-G-M/U.A.'s majority stockholder, bought United Artists to give M-G-M a distribution company and a fuller library of old movies.
But high interest rates put M-G-M into deep water, and Mr. Begelman's films did not provide the necessary cash flow. To raise some money, M-G-M/U.A. recently sold its pre-1948 Warner Bros. films and its U.A. music company to Warner Communications for approximately $100 million in cash.
''M-G-M still has a long row to hoe,'' Mr. Forst said. The report for the company's fiscal third quarter, ended May 31, was released a few days ago. It showed gains in revenues from films and television but an overall loss of $4.4 million, in contrast to a profit of $3.4 million a year earlier. In addition, some of the profits from ''Poltergeist'' will have to be split with investors in SLM Entertainment Ltd., a partnership set up to invest in M-G-M/ U.A. films.
Mr. Begelman started his career as a talent agent and quickly became one of the most successful agents in the movie business, with such clients as Judy Garland, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. Mr. Begelman became president of Columbia in 1973 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and he is widely credited with reviving that studio.
His success as a studio executive was said to result from luck and from good relationships with important actors and directors. After leaving Columbia and before joining M-G-M, he became the independent producer of ''Wholly Moses,'' a box-office failure.
Illustrations: photo of David Begelman (page D7)