Chicago native Frank Alexander has been many things during a varied and exciting journey through life. Frank has served with distinction in the U.S. Marine Corps. as well as an Orange County Deputy Sheriff Jailer. Frank was an amateur/professional bodybuilder (Frank placed first in his weight class 16 times in 32 competitions between 1979 and 1995. He was the overall winner 5 times.) And co-author of the book about Tupac Shakur, "Got Your Back" along with Heidi Siegmund Cuda. Frank was also the highly successful owner of his own personal training business prior to becoming Tupac Shakur's hand-picked, personal bodyguard during the last year of Tupac's life. Tupac Shakur was also many things during his brief life of 25 years: Poet and prisoner, poor and platinum, prophet and agitator, saint and sinner and eventually shot and killed. The documentary film: "Tupac Shakur: BEFORE I WAKE", is the true and factual story of a personal relationship between a much missed iconic superstar and a much maligned personal protector . This film was co-executive produced by Frank Alexander, who also appears in the film and Sean Long, head of Sepiatone Entertainment. "Tupac Shakur: BEFORE I WAKE" is presented by Frank's production company, Step N' Up Enterprises along with Sepiatone Entertainment, and Xenon Pictures. This film contains never-before-seen footage of Tupac recording his last album, "Until The End of Time" with commentary by Frank and others, discussing the life, and more importantly, the death of Tupac Shakur, revealing new information and fresh insight into what remains an unsolved murder.
"I had taken a job working as studio security with Death Row. Me and Tupac were on a strictly "hi, bye" relationship at first. Then I moved up to video security. My very first body guarding experience was with Snoop and The Dogg Pound in New York. This is how everything kicked off. We're in New York, December 1995. We're doing the video shoot for "New York, New York." We're in Times Square. Biggie Smalls gets on the radio and announces to all of New York that Tupac and The Dogg Pound is in Time Square shooting a video. That was Friday night. Nothing happened but Biggie had fueled the fire. Even though he was loud and wrong, he got folks hot. Tupac was in California at the time. The next afternoon we were in the Bronx to shoot another scene when somebody shot into Snoop's trailer from across the street. I did my job and safely evacuated Snoop and The Dogg Pound (Daz, Kurupt and Nate Dogg) and we all returned safely to California. To my surprise, after we got back, I learned that the word at Death Row as that I was a hero. I was personally summoned to Suge Knight's office where Suge asked me what happened, thanked me and informed me of my "hero status." Frank explains. Little did Frank know then that his actions on that scary day in the Bronx would send him on a collision course with the most successful and controversial figure in Hip-Hop...Tupac Shakur.
"Now I'm being asked to bodyguard Tupac. I said no. I didn't want to bodyguard 'Pac. I had heard stories from the other security guards about how hard Tupac was to keep up with. They said he drove 100 miles an hour, he tried to lose you Frank Alexander/Page 2.
all the time and this and that. I didn't want to do it but I was asked again and then again. Finally I said...all right. I was Tupac 's personal bodyguard. It was a challenge. Tupac drove like he had a brick at the bottom of his foot. He never shook me. I accepted him, he accepted me and we became friends."
Frank Alexander was now personal bodyguard to Tupac Shakur at the height of Tupac's success as a recording artist on Death Row Records, a rising film star, and the increasingly antagonistic point man fueling the flames of the tragic and infamous east coast-west coast rift.
"I want to show Tupac fans and all the people who didn't know him...I knew 'Pac, and despite what they may have heard, or how the media represented