Gorillas In The Mist star Sigourney Weaver was awestruck when she was offered membership into an 'exclusive club' after a trip to Africa - because the only requirement was to have survived an attack by a wild gorilla.

Weaver was shooting a documentary about the horrors of gorilla poaching in 1988 when she was charged by an ape - and lived to tell the tale.

She later discovered only a few people had escaped a gorilla attack.

Still haunted by her life-threatening experience, Weaver says, "I was charged by a silverback (gorilla)-- he was in a bad mood. We should've known that. Usually he didn't pay any attention to me. He was about 450 pounds. And all of a sudden he got up, he beat his chest, he came roaring right up the hill toward me... and he knocked me down.

"I crawled away through the brush and ran into someone from the research center who said, `You've just joined a very exclusive club. You've just been hit by a silverback gorilla.'"

-Sigourney Weaver Pictures

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)