Tom Cruise receives Friars Club award unscathed

New York - St. Andrews, --

The Friars Club, best known for searing celebrity roasts, held the insults when it toasted Tom Cruise.

The actor received the fourth ever Friars Club Entertainment Icon Award on Tuesday night, placing him in the same company as Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra.

Fresh off a whirlwind week of premieres for "Rock of Ages," the actor, who turns 50 next month, said he's amazed his career is still going so strong.

"I was hoping. After my first film I remember thinking I just wanted the opportunity to do it again. And I didn't know whether I was going to have it again and so to be doing this now; it's kind of amazing to me," he said on the red carpet.

Alec Baldwin presided at the Waldorf-Astoria, where speakers included such former co-stars as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kevin Pollak. Robin Thicke and Corinne Rae Bailey were among the musical performers.

Many had stories about working with Cruise. Baldwin joked that any time he finds himself taking on too many tasks at once, he hums the theme from "Mission: Impossible." Pollak, who appeared with Cruise in "A Few Good Men," remembered being in awe of the "unusually large and perfect pen" Cruise used for marking his script. The actor soon had a pen sent to Pollak's trailer, then sent him a second one when Pollak worried about losing the first.

The capper: Pollak still carries one of the pens with him, and showed it off to the crowd.

Torch for 'Fire'

Scotland - The Olympic flame has re-created part of filmmaking history, with torchbearers in Scotland re-enacting a classic scene from the Oscar-winning "Chariots of Fire."

The Olympic torch was in Scotland on Wednesday, working its way past sites such as the Falkirk Wheel to Edinburgh Castle on the 26th day of the relay.

Thirteen-year-old Jo seph Forrester, trailed by 20 schoolchildren, carried the torch along West Sands beach in St Andrews to re-create the opening scene of "Chariots of Fire."

The 1981 film opens with a classic scene of British runners churning through waves and sand to the soaring strains of music by Vangelis. The title of the film comes from a refrain in the classic Christian hymn "Jerusalem," which is sung later in the film.