Kelly McPherson grew up in suburban Dallas and studied film and
television at the University of Texas at Austin. Upon graduation, he
moved to Los Angeles and went to work for Oscar-winning producer,
Arnold Shapiro as a producer, and later, a writer.
Kelly segued from the early days of reality television to writing and
producing historical documentaries including the successful mini-series
Las Vegas, Gamble in the Desert for A&E and The History of Sex for
History.
In 1998 he was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for
outstanding documentary writing for Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic
(A&E). In 2002, Kelly adapted Joseph Ellis' Pulitzer Prize winning
book, "Founding Brothers" for History and was nominated for a second
WGA award for outstanding documentary writing for the project.
In 2006, Kelly moved to Authentic Entertainment, where he served as
executive producer/showrunner for six seasons on the hit Food Network
series, Ace of Cakes. In 2007, Kelly collaborated with Oscarwinning
writer/producer Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Pearl
Harbor) to create "Fight or Die" - a Discovery special on the first
major battle of Vietnam. Kelly served as EP, co-creator and writer on
the project.
In 2008, Kelly started Karga Seven Pictures with partners, Emre Sahin
and Sarah Wetherbee. Since establishing Karga Seven Pictures, Kelly has
executive produced the series How Booze Built America with Mike Rowe
for Discovery, Futurescape with James Woods and Alien Encounters for
Science Channel, as well as numerous series and specials for networks
including History, Discovery, National Geographic, TLC, Travel Channel,
ID, Food Network, Cooking Channel, Animal Planet, Weather Channel, and
MTV.