Gossip Friday: Carole’s Free Films

From September 1941:

Clark Gable gave Carole Lombard a 16mm projector and sound equiptment last Christmas,
and she decided it would be very nice to have a 16mm library of all her hit pictures. She made inquiries and discovered that a 16mm copy of a feature film, with sound, costs four hundred dollars and she could get a twenty percent
discount. So, very blithely, she made the rounds of the various studios where she’d made the films, and told them about her wonderful idea. The studio heads insisted upon presenting her with the copies. Not one would let
her pay for them. Which was pretty heartwarming for Miss Lombard—thinking, after all, how she really had worked hard to make them so much money—and now how nice they were to her! Well, the payoff for the gifters is that other stars heard about Carole’s 16mm library—and want them, too. And why, say they, should they pay?