Dian Fossey was a celebrated primatologist who was to gorillas what Jane Goodall has been to chimpanzees, until she was bludgeoned to death in Rwanda more than 30 years ago. Now, shell be featured in a new documentary series chronicling her work, legacy and untimely death.

National Geographic will air the series, called Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist, this year. It includes unseen archival footage taken during Fosseys life and interviews with colleagues and friends. Sigourney Weaver , who was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Fossey in the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist , will narrate.

Fossey, alongside Goodall and orangutan researcher Birut Galdikas , was among the worlds leading experts on great apes at the time of her death. She founded the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda , East Africa, in 1967 at the time just a collection of tents and was the first person to habituate mountain gorillas to human contact and eventual study.

A 1981 New York Times profile of Fossey and her colleagues described the three women as fearless researchers who loved the animals they studied.

The three women pooh-pooh any thought of danger, for they are comfortable with their animals, who have never hurt them seriously, not even Dr. Fossey, who works with what the early explorers called fearsome beasts and what she calls the gentle giants, the story reads.

I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people, Fossey told the Times.