Term of the Day: box-office poison

box-office poison--a leading actor or actress who is capable of killing a show. Sometimes, a crew member who has worked on a string of bombs will call themselves box-office poison. "The young stage manager, who had worked on a string of bombs, called herself 'box-office poison.'" "Baywatch's David Hasselhoff was box-office poison for the original 'Jekyll and Hyde' in the late 1990's."