Yes, the band's most famous member is the least technically gifted, and the most influential, the guitarist David Evans, a.k.a. the Edge, is the least likely to pipe up in public.
While they will be the most influential, the embarrassing or forgotten tidbits can show up on page six and beyond, warns Andy Beal, co-author of "Radically Transparent," a book about monitoring and managing online reputations, and a consultant who says he has helped people get information removed from the Web.
The most influential, the one whose Holmes lingers in the mind as an anti-version of Mr. Downey's, is Basil Rathbone, who was a movie Holmes from 1939 to 1946, and who imprinted on us such seemingly essential Holmesian traits as the high, brainy forehead; the slick, swept-back hair; the languid, aristocratic bearing; the supercilious putdowns.
The notion that critics once had power is certainly one of the selling points on the jacket for the Kael biography, which states that during her time at The New Yorker (1968-91) she "became the most widely read, the most influential, the most powerful, and, often enough, the most provocative critic in America".
According to Sam Freedman, who was at one of the most influential, the rightwing Policy Exchange, before becoming an adviser to Michael Gove in opposition and government, most of the ideas now being rolled out in schools started life in right-of-centre thinktanks before the 2010 election.
For all his musical skills it's probably his hair and fashion-sense that's most influential – the androgynous star recently graced the front cover of Italian Vogue and had a front row seat at the YSL show at Paris fashion week last month.
