November 13 is the birthday of American actress JEAN SEBERG (1938-1979). SHE lived half of her life in France, and some of her most memorable roles, in addition to those in American movies like "Paint Your Wagon" and "Airport," were in Otto Preminger's "St. Joan" and "Bonjour, Tristesse" and the French New Wave film "Breathless" directed by Jean-Luc Godard. She was also one of the best-known targets of the FBI COINTELPRO project. Her targeting was a well-documented retaliation for her support of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.

Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, with police ruling her death a probable suicide.

November 13 is the birthday of Finnish composer JOONAS KOKKONEN (1921-1996). He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera The Last Temptations has received over 500 performances worldwide, and is considered by many to be Finland's most distinguished national opera ...

Even though he studied at the Sibelius Academy, he was mainly self-taught in composition. Usually his compositions are divided into three style periods: a neo-classical early style from 1948 to 1958, a relatively short middle period twelve-tone style from 1959 to 1966, and a late "neo-Romantic" style of free tonality which also used aspects of his earlier style periods, which began in 1967 and lasted for the rest of his life.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: On November 13, 1940, Walt Disney's FANTASIA was released.

FANTASIA was the first film to use stereophonic sound, or, as Disney called it, Fantasound. Most film critics and classical music critics loved it. Chicago Tribune film critic, Mae Tinee, called Fantasia "beautiful...but it is also bewildering. It is stupendous. It is colossal. It is an overwhelmingly ambitious orgy of color, sound, and imagination." But the New York Herald Tribune's film critic, Dorothy Thompson was a wet blanket, calling the film an 'abuse of power' and a 'perverted betrayal of the best instincts,' as well as 'cruel,' 'brutal and brutalizing' and a 'remarkable nightmare.' She said that she 'left the theater in a condition bordering on nervous breakdown.'"

Fantasia cost $2.28 million to make, a huge sum for an animated film. Disney didn't start making the money back until the film was rereleased in the 60s when its psychedelic qualities were more appreciated.

November 13 is the birthday of jazz pianist and bandleader BENNIE MOTEN.

Moten was born and raised in Kansas City and was a mentor to Count Basie, Walter Page, and Oran 'Hot Lips' Page. He led his Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the regional, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s big bands. The jazz standard "Moten Swing" bears his name.

November 13 is the birthday of BUCK O'NEIL (1911-2006).

O'Neil was a first baseman and manager in the Negro American League who played mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs and played a major role in establishing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

"Do yourself a favor: Go down to 18th and Vine just to see a bit of Kansas City history. It was exciting. Yeah. There were musicians and baseball players and beautiful women and men dressed up like you wouldn’t believe. Every restaurant, hotel and bar had a band playing sweet music. Yeah. People ask me what it was like, I tell them this: A man would come to Kansas City and say 'I have a cousin here, but I don’t know where he is.' I would say 'Well, you just stand right here on the corner of 18th and Vine, and before this day is over, he will show up.' Yeah. That was 18th and Vine."

November 13 is the birthday of the author of "Treasure Island", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and many other fine works, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1850-1894). He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.

Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Sidney Colvin, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands, his writing turned from romance and adventure fiction toward a darker realism. He died of a stroke in his island home in 1894 at age 44.

A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. In 2018, he was ranked just behind Charles Dickens as the 26th-most-translated author in the world.