Yorkshire is the birthplace of motion pictures.

It was mid-October, 1888. In the garden of Oakwell Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, ex-pat Frenchman Louis Le Prince gathered a quartet of friends and relatives and recorded their moving images on celluloid film using a single lens camera he had invented. A short while later he filmed a view of horses, people, trams and traffic on Leeds Bridge. At that instant, Yorkshire's place in the history of film was ensured. Le Prince's daughter, Marie, always claimed she had seen moving images projected on the wall of his workshop in Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, as early as 1885. She would continue to support her father's work until her old age, along with her mother's claims that Louis, who disappeared without trace in 1890, had been disposed of by agents acting for his rivals. Le Prince certainly had his competitors, among them the American Thomas Alva Edison. Shortly after Le Prince vanished on a trip to France, Edison claimed motion pictures as his invention. And, a quarter of a century later, Hollywood played host to the very first twitching movements of its embryonic film industry.

Ancient skulduggery aside, Yorkshire retains its place in British cinema history thanks to an incredibly rich line-up of productions dating back beyond the 1920s, the decade when the county witnessed its first feature filmmaking after years of one- and two-reelers.

It is a never-ending and constantly fascinating subject to explore, not least when casually uncovering some of the forgotten gems shot within the Broad Acres and the impressive repertory of stars that has populated them. I wandered onto my first film set during 1987. Bradford's Little Germany, so named because of its distinctive Germanic architecture, had been transformed, albeit temporarily, into an impressive and semi-plausible rendering of Cold War Berlin. Alongside a checkpoint and suitably grim-faced border guards was a more-than-believable Berlin Wall – constructed from blasted grey plastic and barbed wire made of string. The eclectic ensemble cast included Tony Danza, Sid Caesar and David McCallum. With friends I watched from a distance as Danza roared up to the checkpoint in a jeep, leapt out and confronted the enemy. The scene was repeated several times until the director was satisfied. Later, as extras lounged around waiting for their next call, I went looking for McCallum – the only one of the cast I had heard of. I found him heading at speed for a very modest caravan parked at the top of a steep hill, pursued by a gaggle of kids and adults clutching autograph books. On reaching this modicum of sanctuary he clambered inside and quickly closed the door. He didn't reappear. About a year later the film, entitled Wall of Tyranny, appeared on TV. It wasn't particularly good but at least it was memorable – for those fleeting moments of recognition when 1980s Bradford became 1960s Berlin.

I confess to being quietly obsessed with Yorkshire's film heritage for longer than I care to remember. It is something that has cried out for a book and, without realising it, I began harvesting information and pictures for a project that might always have remained a pipe dream except for one crucial aspect: there was someone out there as keen on the subject as myself. From the mid- 1980s, when I entered journalism as a cub reporter, I steered myself toward the cinema. From reviewing new releases through interviewing stars via obituaries and Oscars coverage, movies became my metier. A bonus was being able to access the set of a new production – something that is far from easy. Working for the Yorkshire Post provided that vital foot in the door.

Soon I was rubbing shoulders with actors, directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and extras on an array of films shot within Broad Acres.There were early encounters with Ewan McGregor, David Tennant and Sean Bean and brushes with talents such as Maggie Smith and Michael Caine. Photographs were taken in their scores but only a handful saw the light of day.

My partner on these cinematic sojourns was Jim Moran, a fine photographer whose lens soaked up the atmosphere of a film and the mechanics of filmmaking. Over the years we would discuss the prospect of transforming our experiences into a book. It took a third party to galvanise the fantasy into reality.

David Wilkinson is a Leeds-born former actor and film producer who believes strongly in his roots and his county's cinematic history. His company Guerilla Films concentrates on British and Irish product. David had ambitions to set up a publishing arm for books on aspects of the cinema. I pitched five ideas; he leapt at one. Thus Made in Yorkshire was born.

Pillaging our accidental (but detailed) archive of words and pictures, Jim and I delivered a treatment for a book covering what we believed was the 60-plus titles shot wholly or partly in Yorkshire. Very quickly we realised we would have to set aside what we thought we knew: the real figure was twice, maybe three times, as many.

I had decided in my own mind that I was an authority on Yorkshire's filmic history. My research was assiduous, bordering on anal. Thus a modest project mushroomed into something that, if pursued with diligence and vigour, would have rivalled the New York telephone directory. Reluctantly we shaved back our ambitions to focus on a more manageable line-up of films. We arrived at a final figure of 38 titles good, bad or indifferent.

But what I never expected was to be faced with stories that appeared too good to be true. I pooh-poohed a phone call that informed me that Bette Davis had made a thriller in Malham. "I think you'll find that it was shot almost entirely in the studio," I responded, "and most likely some southern location."

A few days later I was calling back my source and struggling to apologise. Davis did indeed make a film in Yorkshire. So did Paul Newman. And Sophia Loren. And Dustin Hoffman. Lee Marvin almost joined them but his project, sadly, never got off the ground. Such a star-studded repertory of Hollywood talent convinced me that I didn't actually know that much.

The furore that greeted Bette Davis and her new husband Gary Merrill on their arrival in Yorkshire in 1951 sums up our attitude to American stars. The film was Another Man's Poison, a potboiler starring an American heavyweight several years past her sell-by date. It made much of the glacial landscape around Malham and its tarn and showed off Yorkshire's incredibly rich and diverse topography. Today it is almost forgotten. Except, of course, for those in close proximity to it.

I told anyone who would listen that Sophia Loren and co-star David Niven had shot sequences from Lady L at Castle Howard, but that Paul Newman, as Loren's lover, had completed all his work on the continent. Wrong again.

Newman joined Loren and Niven on location, heavily disguised beneath a white wig and beard. What's more, the Hon Simon Howard provided the pictures that proved it.

And Lee Marvin? The legendary boozer was signed up to play an IRA hitman in Jack Higgins's A Prayer for the Dying, to be shot in Leeds in early 1978. Alas, the film never raised its finances and, despite the involvement of veteran director Edward (The Caine Mutiny) Dmytryk, never got past the starting grid. When it was eventually made 10 years later, everybody had moved on, and Marvin was dead of a heart attack, aged 62.

Made in Yorkshire by Tony Earnshaw and Jim Moran, Guerilla Books, £25. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www. yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is £2.75.