Born in London to an American father--he was the London Bureau Chief for the Associated Press--and an English mother, Kent MacKenzie began his education in the British school system, but finished his high-school education in Bronxville, NY, after his father was finally transferred back to the US.

While spending a summer vacation in a camp in Maine, he struck up a friendship with the camp's craft counselor, who was an Onondaga Indian, and became fascinated with the lives and problems of American Indians. Upon graduating Dartmouth he spent a short stint in the Air Force, and after his discharge decided to try for a film career in Hollywood, arriving there in 1953. He enrolled in the University of Southern California's Cinema Department. His senior film project, "Bunker Hill-1956 (1956), about the lives of residents of a fading Los Angeles neighborhood, was well received and was given a screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival, winning the Silver Award.

He secured a job with Parthenon Pictures, which produced industrial films, and gained experience in virtually all aspects of film production. In 1958 he got a chance to make a film he had always wanted to, about the plight and lives of American Indians. The result was The Exiles (1961), a semi-documentary (not released until 1961) about young Indians living and working in the rundown areas of downtown Los Angeles. Although the film scored good critical reviews it didn't get the kind of distribution it needed. MacKenzie managed to get a few more jobs in the film industry, including making a documentary for producer David L. Wolper and a short for the US Information Agency. He made one more feature, Saturday Morning (1971). He died in 1980 in Marin County, California.