Hmmm… I wouldn’t have speculated when this was in GQ, but now that it’s here, I seem to recall reading once (in some unreliable source) that in terms of statuary, the Virgin Mary is the most popular woman, and the Buddha is the most popular man.
#1 Q rating: Fred Flintstone.
And here’s a nifty emoticon I found for Hitler while searching Q ratings:
:-=)
Uke, I’ll dispute your Chaplin assertion. King Gillette had his picture on several billion razorblade cases all over the civilized world LONG before moving pictures were popular worldwide. He’s the #1 international celebrity of the early days of the 20th Century.
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsA-H/gillette.html
BONUS!:
Don’t miss out on his crackpot ideas:
I remember a quiz conducted in a history class I took in high school. The teacher showed a slide show of famous people and asked us to write down who they were.
Some of the people shown (that I remember):
Hitler
Gengis Khan
Queen Elizabeth
Gillette (I never realized what a nut he was before this thread)
Elvis
Muhammad Ali
Charlie Chaplin
Clara Bow
Valentino
Micheal Jackson
MLK
Oprah
Letterman
The only person that everybody in the class got correct was Hitler. From that point on I just figured Hitler was the most well known person on the planet.
I think Ronald McDonald and Hitler are the tow most famous. And oddly, they are both evil.
I am fairly sure a “top three” person in the period, say 1966-1976, would have been Mao. His little Red Book was, for a time, after the Bible the most widely printed book on earth. Besides China’s 7-8-9 100 mil. He was also beloved by non-Soviet leftys of the period to.
My understanding is that he is still taught as a GREAT MAN to Chinese school kids and that Cantonese cab drivers carry little pictures of him for luck (like a Catholic Saint). There are “Mao-ist” rebels in Nepal and Peru in 2001.
N.B.: I’m NOT saying he was a GOOD man, just that at a certain specific period of time he was known by probably +75% of the World’s Population and probably something around 50% of the World’s Population had a “somewhat or very favorable” opinion of him.
Also, in the Mao Suit, he invented a "look " that became MANDETORY for 1 billion – lets see Britney top THAT. 
So, I guess no one remembers Princess Diana??
If anybody’s mentioned Frank Sinatra so far, I must have missed it.
I hate to say it, but she really only found popularity in death.