ABC News Goes Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

— -- ABC News joined the rest of the country in “going pink” Oct. 1. It started out early this morning before the sun came up, when the “Good Morning America” studio went all pink to mark the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The day also held a personal significance for the “GMA” team: It was exactly one year ago when co-anchor Amy Robach got her very first mammogram live on the air. She later learned that she had breast cancer.

This morning, Robach thanked her friend and fellow cancer survivor Robin Roberts for urging her to get a mammogram. "You gave me the gift of knowledge, the gift of life,” Robach said. “And for that I will be eternally grateful.”

The kind of conversation Robin and Amy had this morning is the subject of a new documentary called “Hear Our Stories, Share Yours,” in which family members and friends describe the moment their loved one told them they had cancer: a mother explaining it to her children, a daughter breaking the news to her father.

The cosmetics giant behind that documentary, The Estée Lauder Companies, took “ABC World News Tonight” anchor David Muir to the Empire State Building in New York City as they lit the iconic tower in pink.

Actress and model Elizabeth Hurley has worked with Estée Lauder for nearly 20 years to spread awareness about breast cancer detection and prevention. Hurley says she does it in honor of her grandmother, who was afraid to tell anyone when she discovered she had breast cancer 22 years ago. “She didn't even tell her doctor that she found a lump,” Hurley said.

But today, she says her grandmother would be proud of the women – and men – fighting the disease and able to talk about it so bravely.

Estée Lauder has a special personal tie to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The famous pink ribbon that has come to symbolize the month was created in part by company executive Evelyn Lauder.

As dusk fell this evening at the Empire State Building, the pink lights glowing over New York stood as a powerful tribute to the brave voices of our friends, colleagues, family members and other survivors of the fight against breast cancer.