While making Exodus, Haworth became friends, first, and then lovers, with Sal Mineo, and they remained friends until his death in 1976. She lost her virginity to Mineo at the age of 15 in her hotel suite at the Gotham Hotel in Manhattan. Their relationship as a couple ended on Valentine's Day 1964 when she discovered Sal was having an affair with Bobby Sherman. She did not talk to Mineo for a time, but they eventually became friends again, made public appearances together, and in 1971 she invested in his attempted production of The Wrong People (a book about a homosexual relationship with a young boy). Their friendship led to a brief resumption of a sexual relationship in 1969, but after she got pregnant in September and had an abortion, they went back to being just friends. She later told author Michael Michaud that she thought Courtney Burr III, who later had a long-term relationship with Mineo, was the "love of Mineo's life."